2797 réponses à ce sujet

[csfteeeer]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Ukki wrote...

Anyroad2 wrote...

TRSniper4 wrote...

I think I've finally figured out what bugged me overall about DA2:

DA:O was a dark, scary, realistic world where dark, scary, horrible things happened.

DA2 was a bright fantasy world, with "cute" elves, "cute" darkspawn, and cute just about everything else, where dark, somewhat scary, horrible things happened.

I guess in short, I want my dark, gritty realism back. If DA2 were a standalone title, I'd think it was fine. However, it's meant to be a sequel to a game that, IMHO, is very different from itself.

I wonder why they just didn't start a new series rather than changing Dragon Age into something else entirely?

You're totaly right.

Theres nothing dark about a serial killer who goes after single women in Kirkwall and uses their body parts for (Spoiler).  Or a Demented Son of a Noble who feels hes needs to hurt (and maybe something else) little elf girls because theyre to pretty. Or an artifact that (Spoiler)s people. Or rogue mages placing demons inside of unwilling victims. Or mages unjustly (even by Chantry Law) being made tranquill. DA2 is a happy, colorful, fun place full or rainbows and pixies.

Sorry, but saying that DA2 was a "cute" game with lots of "cute" things in it is just wrong.

I didn´t get any dark feelings regarding any of the stories you mention. It´s like TRSniper4 said, setting make the feelings. To have a good dark story you need to have all the aspects correct. Storyline, surroudings etc. DA2 was just way too cartoonish to aquire a really dark mood.  
Also these stories were way too short in order to build up any atmosphere, with the small exception of the mom issue. Though even in that you have so little choises that you actually are in angs to get it over with since you already know how it will end and you can only railroad it to the end.

What is dark and scary in DAO that was more dark and scarier than some of the stories in DA2? Please enlighten me, because I did not see them. What you mention is very subjective and not in any way quantifiable.

So it this regard one will have to agree to disagree.

Nothing in Either Game was scary, but at the least the enemies in DAO look threating, in DA2, they're just a Joke(yeah i'm looking at you ogre)

[b1322]

I couldn't agree more. When I played Legacy I laughed every time the darkspawn appeared, I thought they were a joke. I also think that everything looks cartoonish in da2, the elves looked weird with skinny legs. At least in dao they looked like human but still elven.

[Rahelron]

My Criticisms:

Too many magic items:
It is just too much... I think that the "white" magic Items are both useless and immersion breaking.
Why immersion breking? Because magic items should be rare and legendary, when you find one you should have a feeling of achievement. Instead in DA every monster drops loads of necklaces, belts and rings, it's crazy!
Why useless? Because many white magic items have the same powers so when you have equipped the first the others end up taking slots in your backpack and nothing more. And remember: there are golden, purple and green items too so after a certain point in the game white items are nothing more than junk. They are there only to be sold to a vendor to make money.

Too many enemies in every encounter:
Everyone has complained about the fact that enemies seem to teleport into battle, I agree with this statement. But I want to add something more: there are too many enemies per encounter! I'm not saying that fights are too difficoult, I'd just prefer to meet less and more powerful foes in each combat. Some battle where you slay lots of useless minions is fine, makes you feel powerful, but in DAII the 90% of nightmare level encounters end up in a meaningless slaughterfests where groups of enemy fighters enter the combat just to die an instant later. It is boring and not satisfying because you don't feel like you are fighting against powerful and threatening enemies.

Give us a better dungeon crawl experience:
No more corridor dungeons please! By "corridor dungeons" I mean places that don't allow you to take different routes to reach the same ending spot. Make us feel that we can choose our own way to to reach the objective. No more doors that you cannot open, but more passages and more secret doors. To give you an example Diablo I dungeons had the best possible layout: you entered one level, explored one or two rooms and after that you saw the stairway that led to the next level. At that point you had the possibility to choose if you wanted to go down or continue exploring, and this made you feel free.

More focus on love stories please:
I felt that in DA2 the romances didn't reach the depth of the first chapter. This was partly due to the lack of a really interesting female character (but I'm biased: I think that no companion will ever reach the beauty and the complexity of Morrigan again). The other reason was the lack of content and of peaces of dialogue with your loved NPC and this can be fixed. Look on youtube and you will understand: there are 4 key dialogues with every romanceable character to make the love-story progress, nothing more. This is not what I demand to a good RPG.

Give us a land to explore:
I have to say that having to travel from an area to the other via load screen is not the best thing, but I understand that this is your chioce. But please: at least give us a land like Ferelden to explore, something wide, with many different locations where the action takes place. In DAO you wanted to include an high dragon and you made that thing perfectly. The background of the fight was great and so on. This because you had the possibility to choose the right place to set things up. In DA2 you wanted an high dragon as well... what is the story behind the combat? Someone says you that something has happened in the same exact location where three other had already taken place. You just go there for the fourth time and look! After dragons, spiders and undeads... another dragon! IMHO this happened because you didn't want to add a new place to the game and you had to include the dragon in an already existing one.

More role playing please:
Combat is not the only thing that makes a game fun to play. In my opinion there are four things that differentiate a RPG from an hack-and-slash or even an FPS game and none of these has to do with the fighting style or the loot. These are:
1- Dialogues where you can choose what to say.
2- The possibility to do the quests (missions) in the order you want.
3- The possibility to change the ending of the quests and of the main game with your chioces.
4- The interactions with NPCs.
DA2 reduced (1), (3) and (4) in comparison with DAO.
1 and 4 are related. In DAO you had to choose to talk with your companions to make them unfold their stories. In DA2 there are less moments when you can talk to your party members and they all trigger automatically. There's nothing to discover, everything just happens. I'm not saying that there are less quests related to party members, this is not true, but the dialogues with them have become more scarce and more superficial. I remember how much I had to dig to discover the Morrigan's history of the mirror and when I gave her the mirror present I felt triumphant.
The third point relates to the fact that in DAO there were many situtations where you had to make chioces that affected the ending of the game or just the final battle. For DA2 the developers said: "Lass choices, but more important": I was happy about that until I found that the chioces were indeed less but not more important than before. Do I want to support the Qnari or the Templars during the Kirkwall crysis? It doesn't matter because the Qnari will attack the city anyway and I will end up facing the arishock and becoming the champion of Kirkwall. Do I want to support mages or templars in the end? Am I a friend or a rival of Anders? It doesn't matter because Anders will do what he has to do anyway and I will end up facing both Orsino and Meredith and killing them. If I side with the templars I'll become the new Vicount, but not for long because I will run away from Kirkwall after a while anyway, leaving nothing behind me. It is just matter of an achievement. You can see that these are not meaningful chioces at all.

Modifié par Rahelron, 04 août 2011 - 04:23 .

[Anyroad2]

b1322 wrote...

I couldn't agree more. When I played Legacy I laughed every time the darkspawn appeared, I thought they were a joke. I also think that everything looks cartoonish in da2, the elves looked weird with skinny legs. At least in dao they looked like human but still elven.

In DAO, elves were small humans with pointy ears, thats it.  Thats all any race was in DAO in fact. Just slight variations of human. Dwarves were stouter, shorter with bigger noses, Qunari were larger, buffer looking humans who liked to braid their hair. Even if they do look "cartoonish" (not agreeing that they do), at least theyre actualy diverse now.

I do agree however, that I thought the DAO darkspawn looked better and closer to the picture that the descriptions of them paint. This bleach white-faced Skeletor look needs to go away.

[thegoldfinch]

TRSniper4 wrote...

I think I've finally figured out what bugged me overall about DA2:

DA:O was a dark, scary, realistic world where dark, scary, horrible things happened.

DA2 was a bright fantasy world, with "cute" elves, "cute" darkspawn, and cute just about everything else, where dark, somewhat scary, horrible things happened.

I guess in short, I want my dark, gritty realism back. If DA2 were a standalone title, I'd think it was fine. However, it's meant to be a sequel to a game that, IMHO, is very different from itself.

I wonder why they just didn't start a new series rather than changing Dragon Age into something else entirely?

I actually think there wasn't enough vibrancy to completely satisfy me in DA2, although I feel that it was leaps and bounds in the right direction. The buildings of Kirkwall were a little too plain and looked the identical when, say, Lowtown would have perhaps benefitted from more of a shanty town vibe. More variation in architecture, more tastes of the red/white/black/gold color sceme that is associated with this story, more decoration. That would have been ideal.

I have also never considered the franchise to be dark or grim one in the first place. There were certainly dark elements of the DA:O narrative, but when I think of dark fantasy my mind turns to A Song of Ice and Fire. And I don't want another Song of Ice and Fire, where everyone rapes and murders everyone and their dog.
 
Also, "dark fantasy" always seems to translate to, "So you want more realism? Okay, have some mud colors. I'll leave the rest of the rainbow in my pants." Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Gears of War. Call of Duty. Metro 2033. All good games to different people, but they all have one single color dominating their palete. It gets so dreary and I am sick of seeing it everywhere. It seems like a very cheap and unoriginal way to make an adult narrative.

You are obviously welcome to your own opinion, but for me, I appreciate that Dragon Age 2 was trying to find it's own flavor. The video game world has enough brown and gray environments for my stomach to handle.

Modifié par pixieface, 05 août 2011 - 02:51 .

[Demx]

AI pathing needs to be improved. The computer, whether it is the characters in your party or the enemy, become very confused when their destination is directly behind an obstacle. Instead of trying to through a door or an open path, they will continue to try to walk through the wall until you take control of the character or they are killed.

[csfteeeer]

Anyroad2 wrote...

b1322 wrote...

I couldn't agree more. When I played Legacy I laughed every time the darkspawn appeared, I thought they were a joke. I also think that everything looks cartoonish in da2, the elves looked weird with skinny legs. At least in dao they looked like human but still elven.

In DAO, elves were small humans with pointy ears, thats it.  Thats all any race was in DAO in fact. Just slight variations of human. Dwarves were stouter, shorter with bigger noses, Qunari were larger, buffer looking humans who liked to braid their hair. Even if they do look "cartoonish" (not agreeing that they do), at least theyre actualy diverse now.

I do agree however, that I thought the DAO darkspawn looked better and closer to the picture that the descriptions of them paint. This bleach white-faced Skeletor look needs to go away.

there is actually an explanation for why the Qunari are just larger Humans, they are HORNLESS Qunari, not all the Qunari are born with Horns.

and i don't care if theres diversity, the Elves look ugly as F**k to me.

[DoomBlackDragon]

Best thing they can do for DA3 is bring back DAO crew. People might not know this but alot of the DAO devs jumped overboard when they started to make DA2. That why the game was no where near as good. Second thing they can do. Work longer on making the game. 1 year is not a good game making plan. We know it was about 1 year sence your videos keep going on and on about ME2 being a epic game. So it clear that you make a Medieval verson of Mass Effect 2. Which I still thought ME2 story plot was very weak. While the combat was very good.

Simply put. Get the origins team back. Work harder on the game. You really expect the fans to love you after making an epic game like DAO which was being made before you even started ME1. It was what 6+ years being made. Then you quickly slapped this crud together at last min to just say it a dragon age game. No We want bioware quility gaming.

Not sure who to blame for this garbage. EA ToR or Bioware them self.

[Realmzmaster]

DoomBlackDragon wrote...

Best thing they can do for DA3 is bring back DAO crew. People might not know this but alot of the DAO devs jumped overboard when they started to make DA2. That why the game was no where near as good. Second thing they can do. Work longer on making the game. 1 year is not a good game making plan. We know it was about 1 year sence your videos keep going on and on about ME2 being a epic game. So it clear that you make a Medieval verson of Mass Effect 2. Which I still thought ME2 story plot was very weak. While the combat was very good.

Simply put. Get the origins team back. Work harder on the game. You really expect the fans to love you after making an epic game like DAO which was being made before you even started ME1. It was what 6+ years being made. Then you quickly slapped this crud together at last min to just say it a dragon age game. No We want bioware quility gaming.

Not sure who to blame for this garbage. EA ToR or Bioware them self.

Most of the Origin crew is still there and worked on DA2 especially the main writers. The Lead Designer changed because Brent Knowles left. But most of the crew that made Origins made DA2. Check the credits for both games.

[IamPolaris]

i didnt read every complaint here, but RPGs have always been my favorite. DA2 comes across as nothing more than a quick cash in on DA1's success.. Its as if they started off with the idea of a great sequel, but then they just kept pulling people away to work on ME3 and TOR and only left a skeleton crew to work this one.
Re used maps are just plain insulting and LAZY.
the only decent gear is gear I have to pay for through points, a la mafia wars and ZYNGA.. are you serious.. I just paid 60 bucks for a game and you want me to play the game with a rusty dagger unless I buy downloadable content?
There was apparrently ZERO thought into the way the drops and loot I beat a dragon and walk up to "PILES OF TREASURE" for 22 silver and dragon viscera.... really..I kill 30 dragonlings a high dragon, a mature dragon and such but i dont get ANY dragon blood for crafting, no hide, no bone, no NOTHING!!!! what it all just disappeared?
And what the crap is with taking the sister away? why? whos idea was that. I spend the majority of act 1 with her building her up as my Damage mage only to lose her for the rest of the game... ???!!!
Why would you do that?
Ultimately this game seem like a big EF YU to us.. ... Dragon age origins was friggin awesome.. But holy crap this one wreaks.. You guys can do much better

[IamPolaris]

Who's idea was it for the gear to be restricted to the main character? WHy ? what purpose does that serve..?

[Spell Singer]

In playing through as a mage one thing has become more and more clear over time is that the way sustained modes are set up in DA2 has a draw back. In DA:O the sustained mode had a fixed cost (and was abusable) but over time if you grew your mana pool consistantly that cost became an ever decreasing percentage of the total. In DA2 the cost is a fixed percentage and your mana pool grows (I assume most people grow it but I could be wrong). The cost of the mode thus increases while the bonus remains fixed. On a bang for buck basis its value decreases with time. The affects sword and shield warriors hard as well (try running shield wall, turn the blade and the party enhancer). Since a part of this is personal character design dependent (if you grow your mana/stamina pool) I'm not sure if suggesting that there should be a slow increase in bonus is reasonable. One thing it does remove is the early period issue of DA:O where you asked yourself if say activating flaming weapons was better than reserving the mana for spell casting against the ogre. But it is a constant in the back of my mind at least that I am continously paying more for the same ability, it seems more reasonable that if the bonus is constant then so to is the cost.

Another thing that has come up is how quick you can die to basically damage over time abilities. In the last few combats my mage has gone down now more often then in the preceeding hundred hours of combat. The bloodmage spells were particularily difficult as even a second hesitation (or miss clicking) resulted in significant damage, I got hit with a single damage spell that was 25% more than my total hit points in another fight, and arrows are a constant threat. Archers are mage bane since your sole agro dump is mind blast and they aren't likely to be conviently located to do that. The game to me needs a basic HOT to deal with these sort of DOTS...reminds me of one of the best Age of Conan sig's I saw. In general the most lethal attacks in this game are DOTs since the healing system is a burst at long intervals.

On the flip side walking bomb...that is just...nearly orgasmic. I quite frankly almost fell out of my chair in shock the first time I used it and it cleared out 90% of the NPCs in a single explosion. But on the other hand seeing it inflict 1637 hitpoints of damage on 2 adjacent shades was also a bit of a shock. 3275 hitpoints per shade?? My party has in total less than 1000 in general even with all of us over lvl 20 at the moment. I also spotted that skeleton archers have 75% damage resist vrs physical...got one with a crushing prison and it took 168 out of 704 damage. Little wonder they took forever to kill. Speaking personally long and tedious isn't really the same as fun and challenging (though challenging is going to vary probably a lot more than fun). It would also be useful if the codex kept track of things like vulurabilities, abilities and resistances/immunities. I know from observation that arcane horrors have a few nasty abilities but exactly what they are, and how to defend against them no idea since the information isn't there in game. I can see the characters hit points dropping but I can't see what is causing it.

Dispel magic is also one of the most, pardon the pun, arcane spells in the game. I've more or less figured out how to use it as a spell caster disrupter but it doesn't seem to actually dispel magic. I've cast it on those glowy star bubble whatevers and they don't vanish for example. Also there is no easy way to program it in via tactics since "under the influence of hostile magic" is not a status option. And the character may be held, paralysed, etc for any number of non-magical related issues. Nor is "target is in the process of casting a spell."

I mentioned before the constant degradation of equipment but it is really obvious now. I just got a nice message from an elf thanking me for my support and bribing with a fine robe. I put it on and walk out the door and start laughing. It may have become my "going to town" robe and it is certain fine looking but...well its utility is negligable. In champion armour (the mage stuff looks horrid...and why did I let Sandal doodle on my arm in red paint?...sorry but none of the champion armour I've seen so far is to my taste)...I have an armour rating of 40%, put on the robes of the silent one and it is down to 10% or so. Put on something else and it can be down to a few percent. As a way of ensuring that the player dresses in a particular outfit it is an effective tactic but I'm otherwise not seeing what the point of mechanic is. This really ruins the fixed drop stuff, the overseer outfit for example is wasted since you don't get the robe till act 3, and by then it is overshadowed by the champion gear so there is no point to equiping it. I recall the same thing for some of the warrior armours.

I've also seen that a number of items seem to be stuck in DA:O mode. I actually spotted belts with +1 armour. A number of the other abilities seem correspondingly weak: is +16 defense really useful?. You only ever find items with +1, +2 or +5 "mana/health/stamina" regen. Also the star system seems broken. A ring with +2 stamina/mana regen found in the later game is rated with many stars while the exact same ring found on the first drop would be rated with no stars. I see belts with +3% physical damage rated highly even though I've been finding them all through the game. I also see named items which are essentially identical...wardens promise and one other ring whose name escapes me are like this.

It would also be good if you could see what something looks like before buying it. LotRO has a preview option which would be worth looking at.

Another thing that I have noticed is the inconsitant use of removing weapons in cut scenes. I just saw one where the NPC still had her bow and arrows on. Sometimes the staff is present on my character and other times it is missing. Most of the time the floating weapons are more imersion wracking then helpfull. That one in particular was really jarring as it was the climax of Gamlen's greatest treasure and seemed wholy unappropriate to the situation.

To end on some positive notes... The story is different this time around, and some of the dialogue has been really incredibly well done. The confrontation with the knight commander at the start of "on the loose" as a mage is very different and wholy appropriate. The comment my mage and varric make later on is also wonderful...character, player and NPC were all on the same wavelength.

The art is still impressive. I've been taking the time to find promitories and enjoy the vistas. Sorry they don't quite have the same impact as coming over a hill at dawn with the river valley in Stigia from the Age of Conan but there as still some stuning landscapes in the game. Tilting the camera also is a joy. The ceiling details, a lot of the city itself. It makes walking (and yes I do walk) around the city a real joy. The sight of the gallows by moonlight is something I just noticed.

[Xanatos Chimera]

I have not completed DA2 yet, but here are things that need to be fixed in the game:
In combat:
-Clicking within the monster circle doesn't target the monster on the fly. It did in DA:O and the zone where the game acknowledges as a valid zone to target the monster is small even for large enemies like Mature dragons and Vartarrals. Targeting a desire demon or a moving spider or a fade on the fly without pausing is essentially pixel-b**ching for a modern game.  If the ground circle is active clicking inside the circle of a target should select the target even if the target's graphic doesn't occupy that location.  Clicking on a dragon's wing or head or behind doesn't select it, unless you hit the right spot in the mid body, assuming you can get the camera angle to show the location.

-Camera problem: when zoomed out to get a more tactical overview and to assist in placement of my companions the camera bumps into the environment walls, meaning that certain parts cannot be seen, or can be seen and cannot be targeted to move to even if the space is valid (not blocked by rubble). It also makes it hard when trying to move my ranged attackers so that a Mature Dragon's AoE or breath won't hit all my characters.  I've had times where I could not get Varric to go up a set of stairs to a better position because I couldn't scroll out enough to see the ground up there to click on it or because the view of the target area was partially occluded by a monster or by a wall.  This leads to having to try to re-angle the camera so that the location can be targeted or having to move there in two stages. 

-When AI behaviour is set to "Default" regardless of the role the character is filling, the character will avoid AoE effects in DAO, but in DA2, they rush into AoE and stay in it, making no attempt to get clear even if they are not hindered by status or knockdown.  Trying to keep Isabela out of an AoE effect even on Default setting in a fight is nearly impossible unless I turn of all independent movement and micromanage.  The current design makes it a necessity almost, and makes the Tactics utterly pointless because it also disables the tactics.

-Shared cooldown for the bombs of different types can be murderous: for example, I use an Explosive at the start to stun and damage the caster or boss monster, but that same cool-down kills my Mythal's Favor and other bombs. In tougher fights this has resulted in a party wipe because I could not use Mythal's Favor to revive team mates because the last character standing was the one that kicked the explosive bomb earlier. The Healing potion and elven potion don't seem to share the same cool-down timer. Why should the destructive bomb and Mythal's Favor?

-When in combat clicking on the portrait of a companion or PC who has levelled shouldn't automatically take you to the level up screen.  I know it pauses the game, but having to get out of it again just disrupts the flow.  Same if I'm trying to move some of my party to a location and am Shift-Clicking them to select them from the portraits.  The plus sign implementation of DAO was better.

Out of Combat: 
One really bad case of pixel-b**ching happens in Fools gold where a mission-critical item needs to be picked up but there's literally a spot on the edge of the target's graphic a few pixels wide that actually has the cursor switching to the loot icon.  That kind of specific targeting doesn't belong in games other than the old monkey island where the pixels were at least large enough to make it relatively easy to target individual pixels.

The DAO Darkspawn did feel a lot more menacing than the look they now have.  I much prefered the DAO darkspawn.  I also notice that the Rage demons got a little buffing and that the lesser rage demons seem to have been replaced by the shades.  Somehow the abominations and Desire demons seem less threatening here than they did when encountered in DAO's missions.

On the positive side: The story is really well written, and I really enjoyed having a voice in the cutscenes.  The different icons were also nice, it made it a little clearer the tone your character was taking and allowed more shaping of your personality and relationships through play.  The environments are nicely done as well, would love to see more of them.  Again, BioWare did a really good job of selecting voice actors and integrating amusing banter that changed and added more to the relationships between different companions.

Modifié par Xanatos Chimera, 08 août 2011 - 02:52 .

[GurrenLagann]

My criticism, ante scriptum: I'm not a native English speaker and not very good at grammar and spelling, so I apologize beforehand.

Quests:

Non combat quest are missing. Consider that Hawke social status grows during the game, having some social quests reflecting this would be nice.


Dialogues:
Having the options to actively include companions in dialogues is nice, but far to rare. More companion dialogue options and more companion dialogues.


Recycled Areas:
Like often said the heavy reuse of areas is negative for the gameplay experience. It's not necessary the recycling itself but the way it is done. In DA2 the same area is used for completely different locations with no logical explanation for the identical appearance. But “The Bone Pit” and and “Sundermount” are examples how reusing makes sense.
Therefore larger maps where multiple quests take place would diminish the impression of reuse. Also if possible adding the 3rd dimension could help. An multi layered map, a canalisation and/or a cave system, could appear new when doing a quest on a different layer which wasn't accessible before.



Meaningful Choice:

a) Having choices affecting the outcome of (major) quest has often the consequence that the consequences of said choices play little to no role in the remaining game, best example is Orzammar in DA:O. Which king you chose and what you do with the anvil only affects what kind of cannon fodder you can summon in the final battle, it has no affect to the rest of the game nor does it affect the story of DA:A.
In DA:O the conflicts leading to the meaningful choices where for the most part already set in stone. The warden's role was often to appear, learning the background of the conflict and then resolving it. In contrast Hawke plays a vital role in the emergence of the conflicts themselves. Also for storytelling purpose certain key events have to happen. Both factors lead to the impression that unlike in DA:O the player has no meaningful choices.
Because of a) and I prefer that choices in the mainquests only affects minor story elements and gameplay mechanics, but not the outcome, e.g. how it's done in Legacy. A more coherent storytelling with a fix chain of events is more entertaining (for me) then actually meaningless choices which only determine a cutscene.

Choices should play a big role in sidequests. In the setting of DA2 sidequests where Hawke, depending on his/her social status, affects the fate of individuals to whole city districts could lead to branching questlines with different outcomes. This could allow for an active storytelling, where the player's character plays part in forming the conflicts and not just solving a fix problem, and having the feeling that your choices matter.
Also cutscenes>letters when it comes to quest resolutions and epilogue like in DA:O.


Mages:
Unlike warriors or rogues mages are special in the world of Dragon Age, the interactions of NPC with Hawke should be little to fundamental different if Hawke is a (blood)mage. DA:O avoided this by making the player character a warden first and race/class second. In DA2 such an excuse isn't given for Hawke, for the story to progress as it does the NPCs either aren't aware or don't care.

A simple solution is to make Hawke always a human who can uses magic. If the player chooses as class a mage, Hawke is taught the classic use of magic. If the player chooses as class a warrior/rogue, Hawke is taught to use magic as enhancement of his physical abilities. That way Hawke's background could have been better integrated into the story and would make the writers life easier. Also personally I wouldn't feel missing something story wise
in DA2 when playing a non-mage.


Visuals:
The passage of time is displayed very badly. For a better representation
a) give companions slightly modified clothes and new hairstyles
include seasons for the different acts (act 0,1, ..) → (spring,summer, ..).
That way the acts could have unique visual and symbolic appearance. Also DA2 doesn't look very good, look
at the birds! Maybe it's time for a new engine with PhysX support.


Companions:
Unique looks and talent trees are a
plus. In Origins the only reason the companions were gameplay wise
different was because of predetermined talents . With a respec option
the differences would be minimal. In DA2 I now have to make
strategical decisions(choices) when it comes to the team composition.


Combat:
Huge improvement to Origins. No totally overpowered classes and abilities. Warrior Taunt doesn't bind the enemy for ever, no more force field, no more overpowered crowd controls abilities, almost no useless talents, no more potions with zero cooldown, cross class combos, nightmare is now hard. Because of waves boss fights are now more tactical challenging then in Origin. Combat is fare more fun than in Origin. Saying waves make DA2 non tactical is like saying that RTS are non tactical because the opponent can have reinforcements. Some suggestions:
- More different enemy types like controllers and healers could improve combat further.
- Alternative weapon set as in DA:O is also missing, especially on nightmare.
- Please remove the invulnerability of assassins during their back-flip, it's so annoying.
- Introduce class Combos which utilize status effect by the same class as lying inbetween normal attacks and
Cross class Combos in effectiveness.


Attack & Defense:
Not an expert on combat mechanics but having 100/80+ in attack/defense value seems to be useless. Maybe to
retain some use the extra attack/defense could increase damage/resistance.


Talent Trees:
Non linearity of trees and upgrades are a plus.


Specializations:
a) On one hand not having to find specializations is good, because some specializations where quite
hard to find in Origins. On the other hand simple being given the specializations is kind of boring. A middle ground may be better where you go to trainers and do quests to unlock specializations.
Instead of being separate trees specializations should enhance normal class trees by unlocking either new talents or upgrade for old talents, e.g. the Duelist specializations upgrades Backstab to Vendetta.


Unique armor:
Companion now have their own look and remain distinct from each other. Far better than Origins were rogues and mages all were the standard armor and only warriors got the cool stuff. A negative aspect is that a huge amount of armor and weapons found in the game become useless. Instead of going back to Origins' system the system of DA2 should be extended:
For clarifications, besides runes, which represent magic attributes like +4% fire damage, there should
be a new type of upgrade, 'refinements' or whatever you want to call them, which represents physical attributes like +4% attack speed.
Give companions AND Hawke fixed armour AND weapons with unique looks. During the course of the game new
armours and weapons could be achieved for the companions and Hawke. To account for stats customization armour and weapon should be subdivided into Helm, Hands, .. and Blade, Hilt.. with slots for runes, refinements and special items. Also the armor material(steel,red iron, ..) and class(light, plate, ..) could define intrinsic attributes and the ratio of rune to refinement slots,e. g. a mage armour/weapon has more rune than refinement slots.
Instead of being useless/gold in another form looted armor/weapons could be brought to a special NPC, e.g. a blacksmith, who either turns them into runes/refinements or trades them for runes/refinements.
Such a system would have some advantages:
- having stats customization while retaining unique looks
- equipped weapons now could be used in cutescenes, like Bianca, instead the standard dagger out of nowhere
- weapons could now be designed with proper holding, scabbard, and not float in air
- loot is now useful instead of being clutter for the next merchant like it's the case in DA:O/A/2

Armoury:
I don't know about others but I use runes, especially resistance runes, rarely before obtaining the final armour/weapons because before that it seems like wasting them. So maybe some kind of armoury menu where you have access on different armour and accessories for the player character and companions and customize these. This could make item management easier and would allow to have multiple armours ready to use, each designed for a special task, e.g. fighting dragons/demons/Qunari.

Modifié par GurrenLagann, 08 août 2011 - 03:37 .

[EgyptRaider]

I myself am still playing the game (currently busy with Legacy, at the end of it. after that I'll be moving onward in Act 3) and I love the game... sure there are flaws and I don't really wanna discuss them since they are already plenty and most were actually fixed in Legacy ... (I'm on the 360 by the way)

One thing that already is mentionded I'd still like to adress is the boss fight of Legacy. The problem with it was not the fact that it was quite hard... but that the AI of the companions was just really suisicidal in the boss fight and even when I always commanded the squid to move to a location they got often stuck between the rocks after wich they were killed by the flames.. not fun ..

Anyway.... the best thing of DA2 is the thing you at Bioware shine at... the characters.. I loved them all... most more then DA:O... and what I'll be saying is gonna upset some people but for me one of the reasons I got more attached to them was their companion armors... I really liked the concept of giving them unique and personal looking armors and robes wich I really missed in DA:O.. It also kept away the awkward looks of Morrigan in Circle robes or Wynne in Tevinter robes.. Yes, it could use a bit more extra customisation but I would rather still let the companions keep their own restricted armor that can only be worn by them.. but simply have some more...

Another (small) thing I hope you really listen to is a more organized Codex.... I love the entries and read them all (so far I didn't already on the Wiki) but the Codex in both Origins and II were quite a mess to be honest...I would rather see more catgories like Elven History and another for the Dwarven History etc. Because at the moment when you want to learn more about a certain subject like the Elven Culture or the Tevinter Empire you have to constantly switch between Lore and Places and look for those related threads..... so subject related categories would really make that much easier....
One other issue I have with the Xbox (was in both games) was that when you get a quest upgrade or new codex entry the entry would be glowing... but when the updates were below the screen and you have to scroll down the glowing doesn't show up anymore because the last entry is always selected and thus if it was glowing you can never find out...
Hopefully you'll fix this in DAIII wich would make reading Codex entries much and much easier and fine. (ow one last thing.. an official timeline like the one on the Wiki would really be awesome)

Well.. that was it... really looking forward to your next release.... wether it is DAIII or and DAII DLC or Expansion.

[Xanatos Chimera]

EgyptRaider wrote...

One thing that already is mentionded I'd still like to adress is the boss fight of Legacy. The problem with it was not the fact that it was quite hard... but that the AI of the companions was just really suisicidal in the boss fight and even when I always commanded the squid to move to a location they got often stuck between the rocks after wich they were killed by the flames.. not fun ..

I'm on the PC, but I know what you mean.  It was only after I set the behaviour to Ranged in tactics that Bethany actually tried to avoid getting into melee range.  Even on default she would charge right up to the enemy even though all her spells (elemental) were ranged damage dealing and controlling.  

I don't mind a murderously difficult fight in and of itself, just when camera problems and AI problems make it that way (companions not getting out of AoE effects, lightly armoured ranged mages trying to go toe to toe when they should be standing back and hitting the enemy, not trying to double for the Tank).

[Uccio]

Rahelron wrote...

My Criticisms:

Too many magic items:
It is just too much... I think that the "white" magic Items are both useless and immersion breaking.
Why immersion breking? Because magic items should be rare and legendary, when you find one you should have a feeling of achievement. Instead in DA every monster drops loads of necklaces, belts and rings, it's crazy!
Why useless? Because many white magic items have the same powers so when you have equipped the first the others end up taking slots in your backpack and nothing more. And remember: there are golden, purple and green items too so after a certain point in the game white items are nothing more than junk. They are there only to be sold to a vendor to make money.

Too many enemies in every encounter:
Everyone has complained about the fact that enemies seem to teleport into battle, I agree with this statement. But I want to add something more: there are too many enemies per encounter! I'm not saying that fights are too difficoult, I'd just prefer to meet less and more powerful foes in each combat. Some battle where you slay lots of useless minions is fine, makes you feel powerful, but in DAII the 90% of nightmare level encounters end up in a meaningless slaughterfests where groups of enemy fighters enter the combat just to die an instant later. It is boring and not satisfying because you don't feel like you are fighting against powerful and threatening enemies.

Give us a better dungeon crawl experience:
No more corridor dungeons please! By "corridor dungeons" I mean places that don't allow you to take different routes to reach the same ending spot. Make us feel that we can choose our own way to to reach the objective. No more doors that you cannot open, but more passages and more secret doors. To give you an example Diablo I dungeons had the best possible layout: you entered one level, explored one or two rooms and after that you saw the stairway that led to the next level. At that point you had the possibility to choose if you wanted to go down or continue exploring, and this made you feel free.

More focus on love stories please:
I felt that in DA2 the romances didn't reach the depth of the first chapter. This was partly due to the lack of a really interesting female character (but I'm biased: I think that no companion will ever reach the beauty and the complexity of Morrigan again). The other reason was the lack of content and of peaces of dialogue with your loved NPC and this can be fixed. Look on youtube and you will understand: there are 4 key dialogues with every romanceable character to make the love-story progress, nothing more. This is not what I demand to a good RPG.

Give us a land to explore:
I have to say that having to travel from an area to the other via load screen is not the best thing, but I understand that this is your chioce. But please: at least give us a land like Ferelden to explore, something wide, with many different locations where the action takes place. In DAO you wanted to include an high dragon and you made that thing perfectly. The background of the fight was great and so on. This because you had the possibility to choose the right place to set things up. In DA2 you wanted an high dragon as well... what is the story behind the combat? Someone says you that something has happened in the same exact location where three other had already taken place. You just go there for the fourth time and look! After dragons, spiders and undeads... another dragon! IMHO this happened because you didn't want to add a new place to the game and you had to include the dragon in an already existing one.

More role playing please:
Combat is not the only thing that makes a game fun to play. In my opinion there are four things that differentiate a RPG from an hack-and-slash or even an FPS game and none of these has to do with the fighting style or the loot. These are:
1- Dialogues where you can choose what to say.
2- The possibility to do the quests (missions) in the order you want.
3- The possibility to change the ending of the quests and of the main game with your chioces.
4- The interactions with NPCs.
DA2 reduced (1), (3) and (4) in comparison with DAO.
1 and 4 are related. In DAO you had to choose to talk with your companions to make them unfold their stories. In DA2 there are less moments when you can talk to your party members and they all trigger automatically. There's nothing to discover, everything just happens. I'm not saying that there are less quests related to party members, this is not true, but the dialogues with them have become more scarce and more superficial. I remember how much I had to dig to discover the Morrigan's history of the mirror and when I gave her the mirror present I felt triumphant.
The third point relates to the fact that in DAO there were many situtations where you had to make chioces that affected the ending of the game or just the final battle. For DA2 the developers said: "Lass choices, but more important": I was happy about that until I found that the chioces were indeed less but not more important than before. Do I want to support the Qnari or the Templars during the Kirkwall crysis? It doesn't matter because the Qnari will attack the city anyway and I will end up facing the arishock and becoming the champion of Kirkwall. Do I want to support mages or templars in the end? Am I a friend or a rival of Anders? It doesn't matter because Anders will do what he has to do anyway and I will end up facing both Orsino and Meredith and killing them. If I side with the templars I'll become the new Vicount, but not for long because I will run away from Kirkwall after a while anyway, leaving nothing behind me. It is just matter of an achievement. You can see that these are not meaningful chioces at all.

Quoted for truth.

[Monica21]

 I just started playing, still in Act I, and I haven't read all 100+ pages of this.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but this is not RPG dialogue. What's the point of my rogue having a high Cunning if I can't use it in dialogue? Where's my Coercion skill? Everything in my ability tree directly affects combat, and that's because of the new dialogue system. I can't persuade anyone, I don't have diplomatic conversations. The only thing I can do is talk to get to the next fight and this much fighting is honestly pretty boring.

And that's the other thing. Where are the non-combat quests? Where is the option to resolve without combat? I get that the combat is different from DAO (and no, I don't like the spinning exploding JRPG style but that's the least of my head-scratcher moments) but it seems most of what I'm doing so far is the dev team saying, "Wasn't that explode-y chunky bit cool?"

I'm unclear why the decision was made to paraphrase. I remember choosing one paraphrase that was at least five words and my Hawke's response was, "Good point." You've just made the paraphrase longer than the actual response. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of paraphrasing?

At this point, I'm not at all sure what my Hawke is still doing in Kirkwall or what her purpose in the game is. I'm waiting to have a goal other than "go here and kill this so you can fund an expedition." I'm really confused how DAO managed to draw me in so quickly, and yet, after spending this much time playing DA2 I'm not at all invested in my companions or even my own NPC. What happened between development of DAO and DA2? This doesn't feel like a sequel, it feels like an entirely different game. It also feels a lot like a filler game between Origins and DA3. 

Modifié par Monica21, 09 août 2011 - 04:10 .

[John Epler]

A reminder, once again, that this is not a discussion thread.

[Uccio]

Allright, sorry about that.

[Sister Helen]

More love interests, more dialogue, more romance, more sex (doesn't need to be graphic, but the occasional hug is nice). Fables 2 allows you to run around town, holding hands with your love interest, which I thought was kind of sweet.

So.... Please, sir, may I have some more?

[shedevil3001]

1 of the main things that dissapointed me was the romance scenes for anders and fenris, i havent tried the others so i cant comment on those, but for the males in da2 the rival romance and the friendship romance scenes are exactly the same, which to me seemed wrong, i dont know whether this has been mentioned at all but i thought it needed saying, also more companion interactions would of been better, however i really do love the conversation wheel, but i think it could be improved,maybe more options and more personalities would be great. Storyline wise i actually loved most of it, but the mage/templar both ending exactly the same way with killing both bosses, i thought was a bit of a let down it felt like no choice was really given, it should really of had side with templar kill orsino or side mages kill meredith not both, just my opinion really but on the whole i still enjoy playing and will continue til the next installment :}

[IsleySilverlord]

More depth in romance options, more "sex" scenes (DA2 love scenes were 100% disappointing) , better story, more than 1 cave and 1 city... you know, not that hard.

[Uccio]

More quests which can actually be solved with talking and making people understand the players point, not with endless killing.

[Amorl]

I have been debating as to whether or not to post this as this was not my feedback from the game. I generally enjoyed my time in Kirkwall and do not wish to pile onto the poor devs. Since it does come from a source Bioware will never get a response from due to his nature I am going to go ahead and post it.

I recently (5 or 6 months ago) introduced a collegue of mine from work to Dragon age. We had discovered that we both enjoy RPG's. He had never heard of Bioware or knew what their reputation was. I told him about their leap in videogame storytelling and got him to purchase a copy of DA:O ultimate. He loved it, his kids loved and he told me stories of their playacting as wardens.

He baught DA:2 about a month ago looking to expand his time in this universe. I asked what his take on the game was.

"It's a piece of %^&$. That stupid little guy, enchantment enchantment" (obviously not a sandal fan).

I asked him how far he had gotten into to it
"naw not very, it kept freezing and $%^%, kept buggin out on me, you know what we should do we should bring our games in and burn them"

I informed him that Bioware had released patches that fix some/most of the bugs but he remains adament on not connecting his ps3 to the internet.

The main take I got from his comments was Bioware released a bug ridden game that he paid for, they wasted his money knowing the product did not work properly. Please remember not all gamers are used to / have the ability to buy your game and then go the extra step to patch them.

On the positive side I do believe I convinced him to give ME2 a try (did have to warn him that ME1 was not on the PS3 and as such he would have to DL a dlc for the ME1 choices.).

Modifié par Amorl, 11 août 2011 - 04:29 .