85 réponses à ce sujet

[Sheylan]

Even on nightmare, this game is... not incredibly hard, Oh, I wont lie and say there weren't a few tough segments (mostly involving archers, damn you archers). But for the most part, once you learn how to exploit a few key spells, (force field, cone of cold, etc), and have enough cash to mass produce greater potions (I went into the final sequence at denerim with about 40 greater health pots and 80 greater mana pots. Gross overkill as it turns out), the game becomes trivial.



I will say though, the number of times that I lost characters (and sometimes wiped completely), to Curse of Mortality and Collapsing Prison made me want to tear my hair out. For two seemingly nonthreatening abilities, they were positively LETHAL. Especialy since I was running with just one healer, if Morrigan got hit with either(or both, as sometimes happend), things got interesting very quickly.

[Greye]

flem1 wrote...

It's absolutely stunning to drop in and see the whining and sense of entitlement that are choking this forum...But I suppose this is party the company's own fault:

I would think it's the fault of MMO's and their prevalence, a milieu in which whining is always rewarded, or perceived to be.  It seems certain that this fantasy RPG culture has bled over into the DA forums.

I agree with you (OP) about back to challenge.  Bioware is also helping set new standards for difficulty sliders and level scaling, yes?  In Oblivion it wasn't so good.  Fallout 3 was much better.  Dragon Age is excellent.

[Sheylan]

ITSSEXYTIME wrote...

Basically the difficulty comes down to this: The game is hard until you start learning some tactics, specifically crowd control but also stun abilities and spell combos.

Overall, DA:O has a great tactical combat system. For people who don't use good tactics it's very challenging and for people who do use good tactics it's fairly easy. If it was any other way it'd be horribly difficult or incredibly easy.
 

I'm going to argue with you here. There are a couple simple changes that could have been made.

1. Remove, or at least make much more dificult to mass produce health poultices in redicoulous quantities.

2. Make healing much more effective. The basic heal spell needs some significant buffing, and the final spirit healer aura ability drains mana so quickly that it is nearly useless except for healing injuries after fights instead of injury kits.

3. Increase mana regeneration. As it is mana regeneration might as well not be in the game. Through an entire (long) fight you "might" get enough mana to cast 2 or 3 spells. Mana potions are not fun. Scaling mana regeneration, so that as you progress through the game your mages gain endurance would be quite nice. As it is, mages are essentialy one shot wonders. Then they chug potions. Their endurance changes very little.
(The increase in your mana pool from willpower as the game advances is mostly off-set by more expensive spells, and harder, more healing intensive fights).

4. A longer cooldown on mana potions(actualy, this should be included for health potions as well) to counter them faster mana regeneration.

5. Faster stamina regeneration, i hate to use the WoW analogy, but Rage (when you hit targets with regular attacks, or take damage, your "mana" pool increases) is a phenomenall system. Something similar would be amazing.

6. Give me a reason to take rogues in my party other than lockpicking, right now, they can't do anything else that a warrior cant do better(In combat I mean).

7. Increase the duration on some CC abilities(the archer stun, the T1 frost spell). Reduce the AoE of the Archer stun also. Fix Force Field so that it is not an automatic "I Win" button on most(every?) boss fight in the game.
Increase the base attack speed of 2h weapons, and maybe reduce the damage if needed. Right now, they get so few attacks in, that RNG has a MASSIVE impact on how much damage they do in fights. A fifty percent miss rate on short fights isn't uncommon, a faster attack speed would even out the bursts of high and no damage.

I'll probably come up with more later. 

[Shadow_Viper]

flem1 wrote...

It's absolutely stunning to drop in and see the whining and sense of entitlement that are choking this forum (and the other, though maybe not quite as badly there).  All the more so when I do so after a session of playing what's really a triumph of loving craftsmanship by Bioware on every level.

But I suppose this is party the company's own fault:  let's face it, every Bio game after BG2 has been trivially easy, though fun (except NWN1 OC) in other ways to make up for this.  Now I realize there were some pretty plausible reasons for this, but it seems to me like one of those quest solutions that has repercussions down the road:  in this case, making a stack of unchallenging games has encouraged a playerbase that expects unchallenging games, no longer on the lookout for new tactical twists and wanting their one single favored tactical setup to win every fight.

That's too bad, because the game is quite entirely fair in teaching you what works and what you need to make things work.  (Even the toughest part -- mage spell selection -- is given a big hint by starting Morrigan in the most powerful lines along with useless shapeshifting.)  They've even set it up so you can dedicate more effort and understanding into *either* character building or on-the-fly micromanagement and unless you *completely* screw the other one up, you're fine.  Let's hope Bio sticks to its guns and helps encourage a new back-to-challenge generation of player expectation.

QFE, well said.

[Inakhia]

I've never understood the mentality that only seems to see the world in relation to the last best thing. "Oh this isnt BG it sucks"," the combat isnt' like *whatever* it sucks", "I expected it to be more like *yetanothergame*, it sucks."

Honestly.

I approached this game with very little in the way of preconceptions. I knew it was Bioware, I knew it was an RPG and I knew it would probably involve combat, party member management and lots of dialogue options, choices and one grand old escapist Heroic storyline.

...and thats just what I got. If the battles are hard on easy or normal mode, then try a *different'* approach, try changing your thinking. Taking the same approach over and over again, failing and then complaining its all too hard is just sad. Its an rpg, is all about exploring your options. Tactics, Strategy, class wise, character wise.

Its also a game made for the majority of people to play and enjoy. Those of you who have completed Hard mode already and are complaining its too easy....well, your probably life long gamers who do *everything* hard core and already have a complete skill set for playing these games. Instead of complaining, try limiting yourself in some way and seeing how well you play when your not just minmaxing and roflstomping thru the content.

Fro the silent majority out there just blundering thru and ejoying the game. Your not missing anything, the game doesn't suck and don't let the grumps ruin your fun.

[Spaceweed10]

flem1 wrote...

It's absolutely stunning to drop in and see the whining and sense of entitlement that are choking this forum (and the other, though maybe not quite as badly there).  All the more so when I do so after a session of playing what's really a triumph of loving craftsmanship by Bioware on every level.

But I suppose this is party the company's own fault:  let's face it, every Bio game after BG2 has been trivially easy, though fun (except NWN1 OC) in other ways to make up for this.  Now I realize there were some pretty plausible reasons for this, but it seems to me like one of those quest solutions that has repercussions down the road:  in this case, making a stack of unchallenging games has encouraged a playerbase that expects unchallenging games, no longer on the lookout for new tactical twists and wanting their one single favored tactical setup to win every fight.

That's too bad, because the game is quite entirely fair in teaching you what works and what you need to make things work.  (Even the toughest part -- mage spell selection -- is given a big hint by starting Morrigan in the most powerful lines along with useless shapeshifting.)  They've even set it up so you can dedicate more effort and understanding into *either* character building or on-the-fly micromanagement and unless you *completely* screw the other one up, you're fine.  Let's hope Bio sticks to its guns and helps encourage a new back-to-challenge generation of player expectation.

Anyone who thinks this game is hard, is simply a crap gamer.  This game takes a little thought and planning, and quite a bit of micro management to succeed - unless you play on pathetic difficulties such as 'easy' or 'normal'.  There are so many ways to play this game, it is frightening.

Bioware even decreased the 'normal' difficulty for the babies and 'WoW' players, so they could complete it too.  Quite simply, the best RPG ever made.. 

[Sunstar]

I mostly play my first play through just to follow the story - it's like reading a book to me. if i have too much trouble I turn down the difficulty level to easy for a bit.



the next play through is dedicated to all the things i missed the first time and stays on normal no matter how many times i reload.



the third is set to hard and I set about doing all that I did in play through one and two again - but using what I learned in play through one and two so I don't die so often it isn't any fun.



that's how i get the most out of my money - just before they bring out an expansion i usually play the original through on normal to remind myself of the story.



For better or worse i'm as into the story telling structure of a game as the game mechanics - that's me. so i play it that way.



I personally don't need to be overly challenged to enjoy the story. but i like to be challenged on hard - so by that stage i'm playing the game not the story - if that makes sense...



Personally i'm glad that they have multiple difficulty levels...

[flem1]

ITSSEXYTIME wrote...

You can argue the AI is a bit basic, but in case you didn't know the AI in pretty much every game is exploitable and basic.

On the old forums years ago they told us about early iterations of the Dragon Age enemy AI that were very, very good.  So good, in fact, that they made the game un-fun by beating the snot out of you all the time.

So I think this is partly intentional.  Exploitable AI is sort of a safety valve in case you can't find *the* exact efficient way to beat an encounter.

[TileToad]

Let's see, how to put this..



Challenging is good.. great even!

Frustratingly difficult is not.

[Periodiko]

flem1 wrote...

On the old forums years ago they told us about early iterations of the Dragon Age enemy AI that were very, very good.  So good, in fact, that they made the game un-fun by beating the snot out of you all the time.

So I think this is partly intentional.  Exploitable AI is sort of a safety valve in case you can't find *the* exact efficient way to beat an encounter.

That's a longstanding problem in game AI: it's often easier to make AI that can utterly destroy the player in a way that feels unfair or unfun than to create "fair" AI that mimicks flawed human behavior and is beatable. For example, in a first person shooter it's utterly trivial to create an AI opponent that always makes perfect shots, has perfect situational awareness, and whose dodging never interrupts his shots. It's much harder to create an AI that has awareness like a human, misses just the right amount etc.

Similarly it would be reasonably simple to make an RPG AI that bumrushed the mages, or retreated at the first sign of trouble and got help, did stuff like force-field difficult targets etc. but that actually isn't very much fun to play against; most strategies in RPG's are predicated on "bad AI" behaviors like monsters beating on well armored meat shields, or else why even have meat shields?

It's also true that the AI in Baldur's Gate was at least as exploitable if not more so - off-screen cloudkill and fireballs come to mind, or laying traps before an obvious fight, or summoning a million minions with a wand of summon monster from off-screen.

That being said, the Dragon Age AI could obviously be better, although I actually haven't gotten around to "Nightmare" difficulty to see if it actually resists kiting or things like that. The point is that the AI shouldn't try to "beat" the player so much as play it's role well, and it doesn't do a very good job of that when you can just kite guys around or draw archers into melee range by breaking line of sight.

[Godzilla vs Xenu]

Agreed. All you need to do is look at gaming sites in general and you have to come to the sad conclusions that gamers are a rather whiny, ungrateful and fickle bunch. I say this with no pleasure as I consider myself a long time gamer. I've joked to friends that I could never work on making games because gamers (not all obviously) are some of the rudest and unpleasant people going, if the net is any indication.

[Kithayri]

Surely the simplest way to solve all these complaints are to either:



a) make easy/casual diffuclty -very- easy, so those who just want to mass select their party and click on one enemy after another can get their wish

or

seperate out casual into "easy" and "casual", keep casual as it is and make easy the above mentioned 'point-and-spam' approach



You'll probably still get some people complaining about how they shouldn't be forced to play on easy to beat the game, but thats just an ego thing talking. Nobody even knows what difficulty your playing on, heck, you can change it mid-game, set it to hard before making any saves if you don't want people to find out



Just a little reply to the 'games are whiners' bit as well: The majority of gamers aren't, but they also don't post on the forums. Those who post on forums are either the disatisfied players who have issues or the hardcore fanatics who (while they may love the game) are notorious for picking at faults and often enjoying the debate of doing so even while they still play every spare minute. Forums give a poor cross-section of gaming culture.

[Cadarin]

Spaceweed10 wrote...
Anyone who thinks this game is hard, is simply a crap gamer.  This game takes a little thought and planning, and quite a bit of micro management to succeed - unless you play on pathetic difficulties such as 'easy' or 'normal'.  There are so many ways to play this game, it is frightening.

Bioware even decreased the 'normal' difficulty for the babies and 'WoW' players, so they could complete it too.  Quite simply, the best RPG ever made.. 

Frankly I find it funny that so many people in here are bashing WoW players, because a lot of the combat elements of DA:O feel like they've been lifted directly from that game.
I've played through every Bioware game ever, as well as dozens of other crpgs, and the two games I  feel the most influences from in DA:O are Baldur's Gate and WoW.  If you really believe this is the best RPG  ever made (and I  actually agree with you) maybe you should think twice before hating on a game that made such an impact on this one. 
Actually, I imagine that people who've spent much time playing MMORPGs aren't the ones having trouble with
DA:O because a lot the tactics are second nature.

signed:  Cadarin, former WoW  player.  

Modifié par Cadarin, 18 novembre 2009 - 06:12 .

[Wolff Laarcen]

^ That guy you quoted is a troll, just ignore him.

[TileToad]

Godzilla vs Xenu wrote...

Agreed. All you need to do is look at gaming sites in general and you have to come to the sad conclusions that gamers are a rather whiny, ungrateful and fickle bunch. I say this with no pleasure as I consider myself a long time gamer. I've joked to friends that I could never work on making games because gamers (not all obviously) are some of the rudest and unpleasant people going, if the net is any indication.

I don't think that's true.

I think whining doesn't limit itself to gaming sites alone. I see whiny ingrates everywhere I look.
Even whiners that whine about whining. (not pointing any fingers here btw, just saying)

Who is the more whiny.. The whiner or the ones whining about that.

[Dagorgil]

Raxxman wrote...
TL:DR = The AI or lack of it combined with class imbalance is the issue with the game difficulty, but the game is not challenging for anyone who's played RTSs.

TBH, I totally agree with your whole post.

Though, my only gripe is that I hate it when I encounter a mob of monsters that stun/knockdown me one after the other, and give me no place to run, and no time to retreat. (A room full of Golems + Mages in a certain level, perhaps. )

[Sidney]

The game has gotten easier from in a huge way for me based on some recent leveling up. I'm really not dying much now but that has to do with:



1. Ditching the rogue. I'm currently tank heavy because I've only got one mage. Party composition seems to matter a lot because I see a lot of "easy" comments about using 2 mages. I don't want to have to min/max my party like that but I will.



2. AoE spells. I've gotten to the point where I have a few. Sleep alone makes a difference but it requires lvl 30 magic so for a long time it isn't accessible. Fireball is lower but unusableunless you are the AI. There are a lot of bad choices on spell progressions you can make that won't give you the magic combo for combat.



3. Shield mastery. Using Sten or any non-shield wielder is a no go given the mobs and once the shield user gets the ability to ignore flanking type attacks they can be a tank.



So...if you don't properly develop your characters down a handful of useful paths, the game is tough. Second, a lot of the "tactics" people so ascribe to are only accessible at level 10+ so I suspect given the release date plenty of normal humans haven't gotten there yet.



Then toss in the steep learning curve on the Tactics screen and how all that interacts and no, this isn't easy and it is awfully unforgiving.

[Inhuman one]

The problem with a developer of Bioware's reputation is that the expectations can easily grow beyond their abilities.



Fans might expect Dragon Age to have all that was good about the previous games.



the challenge of baldur's gate, the brilliant plot twists of KOTOR, the emotion and humour of Jade Empire, the realistic interaction of Mass Effect, and the easy to use toolset, great multiplayer component and wide range of classes, spells and abilities of Neverwinter Nights.



Throw all that together in the expectations and they would become impossible to fulfill.

[Periodiko]

Sidney wrote...

1. Ditching the rogue. I'm currently tank heavy because I've only got one mage. Party composition seems to matter a lot because I see a lot of "easy" comments about using 2 mages. I don't want to have to min/max my party like that but I will.

Rogues actually become really strong in my experience once you get a tank with taunt. I mean, I haven't really seen someone adequately explain why a Rogue would do less damage than a Warrior if he can get backstabs, Momentum + Dual Wield Mastery + Backstabs is an incredible amount of single target damage. You're generally right though, a lot of skills (like Taunt) basically radically alter the dynamic of the game... arguably the problem is once you know what they are, you can just make a bee-line for them...

[Seifz]

I'm not reading everything, but stop saying that NWN was easy! Try playing on the hardest difficult level as a Druid! Am I the only one that made that mistake for my first campaign?

[Inhuman one]

Its easy compared to some hardcore NWN servers where it takes a month to reach level 2, a light health potion is considered good loot, and where you need a bedroll, food, drinks, a campfire and a tent just to sit down and rest which can be done once a real life day.



And I wish I was exagerating but I am not. some servers are like that and appearantly some people actually find that fun.

[JessicaGlenn]

I agree with the OP. Barring some balance issues with mages, I think this game is finally a game after BG2 that is challenging. I've played KOTOR without any reloading necessary, nevermind that tactics were out of the window with only 3 people in the party at a time. This game actually has it all that I liked, tactics, smart party member AI (since you can edit their AI), challenge, and great decisions to make as well as roleplay.

[Heolstor]

Why should a game be work? If people are paying for an enjoyable experience - like a video game - and they don't enjoy its difficulty... I think it's fair for them to speak up and say something.



By the same token its also fair that you speak up in favor of this same difficulty level.

[hangmans tree]

To all people who say hard and nightmare is no problem...well, maybe you like to build your team on fantastic 4 schematics but imagine that someone like me likes better to have around NPCs that I like, not the ones that are the best choice...I played on hard until lvl 10...but fights with Revenants made me reconsider and I had to change to normal. Why? No healer, no REAL tank - Alistair with shield could only withstand 2! hits from Revenant. After lvl 12 it is much better and easier, but that is due to skills/spells availability. All that is a skewed perspective - coz at some point I had a feeling that the game tells me you made a bad choice - you should've take Wynne. This is not a good thing. I am supposed to manage as good as anybody elses party configuration if I micromanage propertly. And this is not so.

I'm not complaining though. I just dont like some of the comments like "cant beat it on nightmare? you dont know how to play", "my mage cant do ninja suff, DAO sucks balls!" and all that crap. Whos to say his perspective on a game is better? Whos playstyle is a cannon? As if some of us forgot to invest some of the points in conversation

As a sidenote please check out the topic if you are interested in rpgs in general http://social.biowar...236801/1#236950

Modifié par hangmans tree, 19 novembre 2009 - 08:13 .

[Jordi B]

I think the people starting topics like this are far worse than the people "whining" (although I prefer the term "suggesting improvements to the game that would in their eyes make it more enjoyable").

hangmans tree wrote...

To all people who say hard and nightmare is no problem...well, maybe you like to build your team on fantastic 4 schematics but imagine that someone like me likes better to have around NPCs that I like, not the ones that are the best choice...I played on hard until lvl 10...but fights with Revenants made me reconsider and I had to change to normal. Why? No healer, no REAL tank - Alistair with shield could only withstand 2! hits from Revenant. After lvl 12 it is much better and easier, but that is due to skills/spells availability. All that is a skewed perspective - coz at some point I had a feeling that the game tells me you made a bad choice - you should've take Wynne. This is not a good thing. I am supposed to manage as good as anybody elses party configuration if I micromanage propertly. And this is not so.

I disagree with this. I respect the way you want to play (playing with NPCs you like, instead of ones that are strong), but if every possible party configuration (and skill/talents/attributes allocation) would be equally powerful, that would take a great deal of fun out of the game for those players who do like to think about this stuff. You may think that strategically optimizing your team is the same as minmaxing and you may think that either is cheesy and "not the way the game was meant" (I don't know if that's what you think, but I get this idea from a lot of "story-players").
Bioware made NPCs with different personalities and powers that complement eachother in different ways. In my opinion, this makes the game fun for both kind of players. The only difficulty occurs when players who choose the story-playstyle expect to easily complete the game on the harder difficulty levels. It makes sense that the harder difficulty levels are for the people who want to optimize their team and strategies. If this were not the case, these difficulty levels would be far too easy for those people. If you more-or-less gimp yourself by choosing NPCs that are less powerful in your team, just play on the lower difficulties. Nothing wrong with that. That's (partly) why they're there!

hangmans tree wrote...

I'm not complaining though. I just dont like some of the comments like "cant beat it on nightmare? you dont know how to play", "my mage cant do ninja suff, DAO sucks balls!" and all that crap. Whos to say his perspective on a game is better? Whos playstyle is a cannon? As if some of us forgot to invest some of the points in conversation

This I completely agree with.