[quote]sleepy__head wrote...
Dragon Age : A breaking of faith between GM and players
Despite the title and the criticism in this post, I promise that this is not a troll post. I will state my case politely and constructively.[/quote]
No, you didn't. Just because you're not swearing doesn't make it polite.
[quote]1. So you see that group of people in front of you, you know you are about to fight them. Anyone with half a brain will strategically position your party members before initiating contact. But in Dragon Age (and many games by Bioware), if you initiate conversation and then things progress to combat, YOUR PARTY IS AUTOMATICALLY MOVED FOR YOU.[/quote]
Yeah, it's a bit surprising. Then again, most of the time you only know they're ahead of you through meta-data anyways, like the strategic view. However, it would be nice if your party could hold between setup and combat, but obviously the game can be beaten withou it beiing so.
[quote]2. At the same time, encounters that do not have cut scenes (random encounters being the worst offender here), the enemies are all magically and PERFECTLY positioned for attacks. Pray tell, when you run into a group of wolfs during your random travels, exactly HOW does your party end up surrounded by traps without tripping over them on their way IN? Exactly how does a group of foes, who are as surprised as you are this being a RANDOM encounter, have their mages and archers perfectly positioned in high grounds only accessible through long jogs blocked by melee fighters?[/quote]
Actually, just because it's "Random" to you doesn't mean it's "Random" to them. You don't know it's coming, they've been hunting you. It's not Random to them at all.
[quote]
- As soon as combat starts, you can see the enemies will IMMEDIATELY start attacking/casting. But does your party do the same? Of course not! Even if you hit pause as soon as you can, and manually issue movement or combat command to each party member, as soon as you unpause, there is a delay that the enemies do NOT suffer from. Often movement or attack orders issued to your party will be forgotten or ignored. Party members who are moving will get in each other's way, bumping, jostling and not going where you tell them to because the path finding AI thinks that just because Person A is right next to Person B and trying to move past, A must spend several seconds to get around B even though they are both in a wide open area.[/quote]
Try adjusting your Tactics for your characters.
[quote]- There is no way for you to tell your party member to NOT automatically switch weapon. If you want your archer to keep shooting even when an enemy runs past him close by, instead of putting away his bow and pulling out his sword, there is no way to do that. So you end up with a supposed archer who runs around chasing a fleeing enemy.[/quote]
Yes there is. Switch to "Ranged" instead of "Default" behavior.
[quote]- Attack orders are CONSTANTLY forgotten or cleared. So your fighter is fighting against a templar, and gets knocked down. Suddenly he no longer remembers who he was fighting against. In fact, you have to CONSTANTLY and REPEATEDLY re-issue attack orders during combat, either because someone was knocked down, frozen, stunned, etc. etc. Why make this so annoying? You want the players to handle the strategy, and not the micromanagement of dealing with the combat interface right?[/quote]
Stop getting your panties in a wad because you can't use the A.I. properly.
[quote]4. The game tip says : "Try to flank your enemies". But it conveniently neglects to mention that you can't flank your enemies if they OUTNUMBER you in EVERY battle. You can't really have more than 4 people in your party, and you WILL be outnumbered. So flanking is essentially and mostly a problem you DEAL with, not a viable tactic for you to USE.[/quote]
Flanking does not depend on numbers but on the strategy. You can flank with just a single stealthed Rogue.
[quote]- The fact that you are constantly outnumbered leads to the absurd situation in which you have to "pull" enemies by taking advantage of the bad AI. You aggro one foe, run away while it runs after you, leading it back and then gank it. Rinse. Repeat. THAT is essentially the key to victory in Dragon Age. The devs stuck huge groups of foes everywhere, and your job is to let one or two see you, lead them away and kill them before repeating this step over and over. If you charge, you die due to the simple fact that there are always more foes than you can handle. Now, a few fights like that is okay, but when you are required to do that just about EVERY battle this turns into a game of bait and lure. What a feeling of 'heroism'.[/quote]
Several do, yes. As planned. There are also several you can't do that to. You would prefer the very mortal PC and his 3 companions charge head-on into massive groups of enemies in a completely unrealistic way all the time? Not going to happen.
[quote]5. Lame and cheesy NPC attacks. I have played just about every Bioware games, every rpg and mmo's out there. I have never experienced such ABUSES with knockdowns as this game. Fight some enemies with shields, or drakes, and half your team will spend more time on the ground than on their feet.[/quote]
So do it back. You can have every move the NPCs have.
[quote]- I have also never experienced such ABUSES with friendly fire as Dragon Age. Enemies, who obviously don't care about friendly fire, often throw fireballs and blizzards directly into the midst of battles. The game is so hell bent in killing you that it ceases to be FUN when it is willing to kill some nearby friendlies just to get one of you. But hey, since you are outnumbered constantly they always have more fodders to throw away like this. Cheap and cheesy tactic if I have ever seen one.[/quote]
Actually, I'm rather surprised about the enemy. They appear to be fairly intelligent. They don't go lobbing around as many AoE spells as you'd think - their favorite seeming to be Chain Lightning. They will, however, occasionally do so. Then again, most of them are Darkspawn, who probably don't value an underling's life the way you do.
[quote]- In D&D, fireball simply does mass AoE damage. But whoever was responsible for game balance in Dragon Age apparently decided not only that mass AoE damage isn't enough, lets add DoT (damage over time) on top of that too. But no, even that isn't enough, lets also add knock back on top of an already overpowered attack. Why? The players are rarely willing to use this because of friendly fire, but the npc's don't have to worry about it. So lets make this as OP and cheesy as possible.[/quote]
I seem to remember BGII's Fireball also knocking back, by the way. Don't compare the game's mechanics to D&D. It just doesn't apply. They may be similar, but ultimately they are not the same system.
[quote]- ABUSE of suppression. "Suppression" is normally defined as crowd control. Since you are invariably outnumbered in every battle, the fact that you have to constantly deal with being stunned, knocked down, frozen, slept, etc. etc. just makes the battles that much more frustrating. WHY is it okay to have an ogre hold up one of your characters in the air with one hand, repeatedly pummeling him, dealing damage all the while that character is unable to do anything? WHY is it okay to be surrounded by 3 or 4 templars only to get repeatedly knocked down over and over and over? Hell, you don't even need to be outnumbered. In the Fade one of the bosses was able to KEEP knocking you down, and as soon as you get up its attacks are recharged and you are on your arse again.
- ABUSE of magic. I am a mage at heart, whenever I have a choice I always play mage type characters or mage hybrid. But I have rarely seen a game in which magic is so OP. Here is a perfect example : you fight 4 mages in the elven forest. You get a conversation cut scene, and as soon as the cut scene ends, your party is all bundled up into perfect position so they are first frozen with cone of cold from one enemy, stunned by a spell from another, take DoT from chain lightning, and anyone lucky enough to survive has to deal with a huge AoE blizzard. And yes, the spells of the enemy mages WILL take place first (see #3 above) and you WILL get hit first. The most you can do is to reload waiting for a chance when fewer party members are frozen or stunned. 4 mages vs 4 party members, you'd think that is a FAIR fight. Having to reload over and over and over again just to get through that part isn't my idea of "fun".[/quote]
Again, any move they can do, you can do (save for special animal abilities). Do it back. Or defend against it. I don't think you're using Tactical Slots correctly anyways, so it explains a lot.
[quote]5. LOOT CHEAT. So you finally triumph over 6 fighters, 5 archers and 3 mages, and searching through the battlefield afterward you found...2 elfroots and 1 lesser health poultice. Can we say what the hell? I swear I saw the fighters swinging swords and axes at me, and those were ARROWS that the archers were shooting using their bows. Devs, if you use something against me, its BETTER be there when I overcome the challenges. If you don't want me to have it, don't use it against me. The game already has an innate balance on how much you can carry on your inventory, and how (absurdly) expensive many items like backpacks, books, recipes are.[/quote]
You beat the ever-living crap out of them. Why would you want their beaten and bruised up gear? You consistently set them on fire, sliced through their armor, pinned them with arrows, and tore them to shreds - I doubt you want their armor since you are obviously wearing something better.
If you don't like that explanation: Every fantasy RPG has had funky looting standards. Even D&D.
[quote]Excuses for bad design/behavior. I know a few people would want to say : "If the game is too difficult for you, set it to Easy mode". The obvious rebuttal to that tired old line is "why didn't the devs called Normal mode Easy?" How about making the game, the enemies, and the interface FAIR and SMOOTH instead? Heck, why bother with Easy mode when at the single press of the Power button of my computer I am able to NOT deal with it at all?
Ages back, when I played pen and paper D&D with friends, GMs who delighted in being unfair, are often never asked to play again. I remember one GM attacked the party with 15-20 master archers in some unavoidable and perfectly timed/positioned ambush, killing most of us. And when the fight was over, every bow (and even arrows) magically disappeared so there was no loot. Needless to say we never played with that person again. In the case of developers and their paying customers, it translates to whether they will be your customers in the future.
[/quote]
This is not D&D.
The fights are not impossible.
The mechanics are better than you think.
You just need to stop whining and ask for help. Thanks.
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