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[BhallSpawn1011]

Frankly it's a disgrace that this game was even released at all and not buried in a dark landfill some place.

[Sister Goldring]

SPOILERS - lots of them....sorry I forgot this was a non spoiler section - feel free to delete the post if necessary.

DA2 review. (see I have a rhyming title which can only be a good thing).
 
I have a strange fascination with DA2 based in part on the totally bipolar reactions I experienced during my three completed games. Awkwardly put my reaction to DA2 is that it is a game of near coma inducing tedium infrequently interspersed with some of the most emotional and exultant moments that I have ever experienced in gaming.
 
What it's got:
 
Firstly and without hesitation Dragon Age 2 has it's world. It is a vast, complex, richly detailed and dynamic fantasy world that is a pleasure to spend time in. There are always new aspects to uncover, little snippets of history to enjoy and endless questions raised about places, characters and their role in this fascinating place.
Your team has done an extraordinary job crafting Thedas and it is this strength that has and will keep me playing and purchasing DA content throughout the life of the franchise.
 
Detailed companion characters and the capacity to develop divergent relationships with them. I think the friendship/rivalry system is a great development. It adds to the replay value of the game and removes the artificial and awkward gift giving approval mechanism in DAO. I found the companions on the whole to be engaging stereotypes, their banters had charm and their conversations added enough to a players knowledge of the world that you could leave the codex to fill in more detailed information for those players who were interested in doing so.
 
I thought the Questioning Beliefs quests and companion initiated dialogues solved the conversation loop issues found in DAO circumventing the whole 'click to see if Alistair has anything new' to say situation. I would have liked to have been able to initiate some companion interaction however even in a limited capacity.
 
I do think DA2 was an innovative game. Although jarring at first, it is an interesting idea to explore different characters and their place in pivotal events in Thedas's history. I'm totally on board with the concept but I do want you to wrap up the protagonist's story before moving on to a new character. My biggest gripe in DAO was the lack of an ending. If you had of left it with the Blight finished and everyone living (in varying states of) happily ever after I would have been content but I think the Warden's story was left wide open (probably to allow for the abandoned DLC) and therefore remains ultimately dissatisfying.
 
I recall on my first game (after struggling to even complete act 1) I got to 'All that remains' in Act 2 and turning to my husband said 'ignore everything I've said so far, this is the best game I've ever, ever played.' I think that narratively Act 2 worked extremely well. You had established your character and suddenly there was an identifiable conflict with the Quanari to resolve and the companion quests/romances kicked in giving a sense of personal connection to your Hawke. For me that feeling culminated in 'All that remains'. I got a strong emotional reaction to the kidnapping and murder of Leandra and just felt so hopeless and lonely when Hawke returned to the estate and talked to Gamlin (I thought his voice actor did that scene so very well)....and then your LI showed up to comfort you. I really did feel for a moment that I was playing something very special and unique. I know a lot of people didn't enjoy that particular quest but for me it surprised me by provoking genuine emotions and so was an overwhelming success and a completely unexpected experience to have in a game.
 
So for what it's got.....well it's got a lot that in my opinion is very, very good.
 
What I didn't enjoy.
 
Well, I hate saying it, but the actual playing of the game, the combat and the exploration of the environments was for me absolutely mind numbingly boring.
 
I know that much has been said about if the combat is too simplistic turn up the difficulty level but I found I didn't want to turn up the difficulty; I wanted a big red button that would make the whole battle just go away (now that would have been awesome!) Not because it was too hard or to easy but because it was just so boring and endless. You click a target, spam abilities, kill everybody, new people fall on top of you and then repeat ad-nauseam..... and then you walk around a corner in Lowtown and another endless pointless battle commences.
 
Honestly, I'm a gamer, I like killing pixels, I really like killing pixels in a classic fantasy setting with a cool sword or staff and particularly a bow.....but come on! I need some sort of motivation for all these random mobs attacking me. I need some sort of variety in what I'm doing. I have a brain and being asked you use it in some minor capacity would have made for a welcome change. I'm not lying when I say at one point I walked away from the computer to do something else and left a battle raging and when I came back, Hawke and co were fine we'd still won the fight... I mean, that's just ridiculous.
 
The repeated environments, the repetitive nature of the combat and the repetition of apparently meaningless fetch and carry quests really made DA2 almost unplayable for me at times. I am not a person that requires constant variety, I have read Lord of the Rings upwards of 42 times to date..... it hasn't changed once.....and I still enjoy it. This game made me say 'please just let it end' more times than I can remember.
 
I don't understand some of the decisions that were made in the game. A lot of things seemed internally inconsistent with the lore of your world. To have Orsino as a boss fight when you're fighting with the mages was nonsensical. To have the Templars overlook (blood)mage Hawke was ludicrous and why was there an option to make him/her Viscount - magic existing to serve man and all? I really think that the game would have benefited greatly by allowing player choice to have a tangible impact on events and NPC reactions. However, I do not feel that the player needed to be allowed to stop Ander's attack, I liked the inevitability of his actions, I don't want to play a god. But, while I like some meaningful fatalism, I don't like railroaded quests. If there's an option to say no (and I am looking at you bonepit mine amongst others) it should mean that you don't do the quest.
 
However, for all these criticisms and frustrations, I did finish playing DA2 and I have played it again and will probably continue to do so (particularly as I very much enjoyed the Legacy DLC). I find there is enough that is good and enjoyable in DA2 to tolerate it's shortcomings and I don't want to go and find another game to play, I like this world you've made.
 
For me, Bioware RPGs offer a unique gaming experience in that you provide an emotional connection to your companion characters wrapped up in an adventure story. This is why I play your games, my background is p&p RPG's and the Dragon Age franchise is the only computer RPG that has ever come close to replicating my experiences with a small group of friends playing D&D in the living room with everyone creating nuanced and often bizarre characters and bickering their way though a campaign.
 
And for anyone that actually managed to read through this very long critique, I thank-you for your forbearance. 

Modifié par Sister Goldring, 02 septembre 2011 - 10:08 .

[Spell Singer]

On the rogue playthrough and I'd like to make one last post on my experiences.

The speed of the combat. I understand that you wanted responsive, and when you go back to DA:O the game is much slower (until you get used to it again) but the issue for me is that the speed is right at the borderline to frustrating and very often it slides across. A turn in a turn based game is just an arbitrary unit of time in which interesting stuff happens...in DA2 a turn would be under a second. Where the frustration peaks is when basically multiple things go wrong simultaneously. During the final quest in the foundry my character and Isabella both died before the game would react to a single AOE blood magic spell...my character was in the middle of the draw animation, I spotted the spell starting up...gave both characters orders to move out of it. My character and Isabella died before the draw animation finished or in the case of Isabella she started to move. Fighting a certain dwarven boss, he hit Hawke for over 350 pts of damage when he came out of stealth. Not a single person in the group can survive that and having Avaline drink a potion and gain 165 hitpoint simultaneous to him backstabing her for 120 and she is left at about 20% health...situation less than optimal. Also you get into some pretty absurd situations due to the lack of secondary weapons on characters...if Isabella is at 5% health you have to run her away from the fight until such a time as she can drink a potion (due to it being on cool down) or the mages heal cool down recharges etc. She can't even pull a witch elf and just chuck daggers. Basically so long as the combat goes postively the speed is not really an issue but when the combat heads south the speed compounds the players problems, which leads to me at least being very, very frustrated. 

You guys have made bows very effective, mind you I thought you did a good job in DA:O but I can't see how anyone can complain about their effectiveness in this game. My rogue without a single talent point in either archery (or duel wielding incidently) was inflicting over 350 hp of damage with a short bow consistently.

This is something that came up in my last playthrough of legacy. During the fight with the Big C one thing was blindingly obvious: playing whack a mole isn't heroic. The guys who are working on SW:TOR got that correct. Even when it ends up being the mini-boss and the whole party whacks on him for a while before he goes down that isn't exciting either. And having a duel with someone who has what 10-20x your hitpoints isn't heroic either, but a party of four beating on big-C doesn't generate any wow factor. The same was true on both my final battles of DA 2 so far... "Thank God it is over, at last." That is what I am thinking. Now the snarl at the end was brilliant...that made me grin, whoever thought of that it was just brillant they deserve a bonus just for that. But whack a mole isn't.

Neither DA2 nor DA:O had particularly amazing endings. Mass Effect and KotOR on the other hand did, if you exclude beating on soverign which I prefer to ignore as it was uninspired, the rest of the ending of Mass Effect is pure wow. Up until that game I though KotOR was the top for endings but ME edged it out. But that last bit, where you blow your way into the council chamber, go through the geth there like a cutting torch through tin foil and at least in my case talk Serin down is awesome. The 5th fleet closing in just adds to it. Compare that to playing whack a mole with Big C...interspersed with 3 renditions of "click, killx2, run: repeat x4" where the only difficulty is your companions fighting your directions and wanting to suicide. This last play through though was sort of salt rubbed into the open wound as Bethany did the deed and the rest of the party was face down when it happened (not the best job I could have done I admit...I should have let the fire go by and followe it to the last clickpoint compound with a few poor pathing choices on the part of the AI cost me Avaline) and so showing Hawke doing it when he didn't sort of feels like being kicked when you are down...add in Hawke killed big C by stabbing him with a bow for that extra special feeling...

I don't know what to recommend or if there is anything to recommend to fix the ending lacking drama feeling I am having (or for that matter if it is not just me and no one else feeling this) but for me the MMO tradition that seems to be creaping into single player games isn't always a good thing; my biggest dislike for D&D4th stems from this. I'm not sure what is lacking in DA2's ending, even Legacy's ending lacks that sort of wow factor that makes it special and memorable. I'd like to be able to explain it better as well, but even though Legacy had all the components in place for a dramatic ending the whole whack a mole experience that proceeds it is immersion wrecking and without that immersion how can you experience the drama? I think that is why both Mass Effect and KotOR had for me at least such awesome endings...in playing them you forgot you were playing a game. If I could say probably the biggest overall failure of both ME 2 and DA 2 is that neither one of them lets you forgot you are playing a game...it all about timers, removing armour so your biotics will work, idiotic "heat sinks" which are indistinguishable from the ammunition capacity of the modern weapon, silly looking animations/weapons/armour, and whatever else that for you personally drags you kicking and screaming out of the fantasy that you are Hawke, or Shepard or "the warden" or Revan or Lotus Blossom.

added in edit:  Let me just add that even though a lot of the stuff I listed as immersion breaking came from ME 2, the concept very much applies to DA 2.  Kiting a dragon around the room...aggro management...pulls...people slding down ropes from invisible blackhawk helicopters...the constant decay of gear...the huge numbers of hit points the enemies had.  All of these things may have made the game more mainstream (and I don't mean this in any negative sense) but they also have the effect of making it beyond obvious you are playing a game...when it take 5 350+ arrow shots to drop a corpse that is jarring since any one of those arrows would have killed a charcter in your group outright.  I don't personally speaking confuse "tactics" with "exploiting a limitation in the lobotomized AI" so when I am forced into doing that it just makes it rubs my nose into the fact it is a game system.  It also takes away from any sense of accomplishment since it feels the same as cheating.

Whack a mole may not be the best way to describe it...though when you consider "add waves" it gets that feeling.  Also since dealing with an "add wave" actually takes some thought...as in threat assesment and priortization the player is pretty much forced to leave the bashing of the big bad in the gallows fight to the computer while they deal (possibly by possing an NPC) with the waves of things.  This makes the fight detached from the character and it occurs at a remote distance...it is that "event over there."  Rather than something that is in your face...made worse if you are playing a ranged character as you are physically removed from it to the point you can barely make out who is fighting.  Blasting someone with a staff at 50 paces while they fight someone else and lobbing in the occasional spell isn't heroic...it isn't even "engaging."  The fight for my mage was:  monitor cool down timers, monitor mana level, keep eye on hit point bars of party...oops another wave...ok pause...look at who is where...check out hit point bars...check spell cool down status...right...move him there, her there, me there...pop over to NPC give them taget and check cool down timers on key abilities, pop over to NPC 2 give them target and check cool down timers on key abilities, check avaline's hitpoints...looking good...right then unpause...  And when I am going through this every few seconds it destroys any immersion because the only thing I am thinking about are mechanics.  There is nothing dramatic about a human being winning a fight against a script code.

I wish I could suggest some ways to improve this...it feels very negative as I read it but frankly I am not sure what to suggest.

Thanks for patch 1.03 and Legacy by the way. Both of them made a huge difference to the game in terms of making it playable.

Also...the last two play throughs I've been noticing more and more the character facial animation.  That really makes a difference and it was well done.  Alpha Protocol's stood out more for whatever reason but this play through it has been very noticable (possibly less frustration over the combat and I am noticing the good bits more).

Modifié par Spell Singer, 05 septembre 2011 - 07:59 .

[ErikModi]

Haven't waded through all the other posts, but my thoughts:

Maps:  I didn't mind that a lot of the caves and stuff looked similar, they are all in the same city/outskirts, after all.  I did mind that they all looked THE SAME, except for which passages/doors were open and which weren't.  Really, a lot of extra mileage could have been gotten by simply randomly organizing the corridors/rooms of a given map.  For instance, for the standard "mountain cave," instead of it being the exact same map, have the rooms and corridors randomly assigned every time a mountain cave is generated for a quest.  Not only would it avoid the tedium of trolling through the same map time and again on a different quest, it would add somewhat to the replay value.  Perhaps include several "unique" rooms, which only appear in a given setting once per game, around which the rest of the map is based.

Gear:  I REALLY missed the short descriptions for every armor, weapon, accessory, etc. from DAO.  Especially when some items are so cretively named, I really wanted to learn more about some of them.  I liked the idea of companion armor, an upgradeable outfit that gives each character their own unique look, though I also missed statting out my companions with the best gear available I wasn't using.  So many great Mage robes and Rogue leathers dropped that I felt like I was wasting them by not being able to equip them on anyone.  I'm not sure exactly how, but I think both ideas can co-exist.  Perhaps the ability to equip either the upgradable companion armor or regular armor, so those that wish to micromanage/change the look of a companion may do so, while those who don't care can just let the companion armor do it's thing.  I also missed item sets, and how every armor could be a complete set, even down to plain old leather.  It was an interesting innovation, one I hadn't seen in RPGs before, rewarding you for wearing a complete set of matcing armor.  I missed that.  DAO seemed to moving in what I thought was the right direction with some of the DLC, including weapon sets and ring sets as well.  That concept seems to have nearly vanished in DAII, and I think it should return.  Set bonuses were awesome.

Story:  I found the story of DAII interesting and compelling.  I did like Hawke as a character, but I didn't feel as fundamentally connected to him/her as I did my various Wardens.  I think the ability to choose your character's background, race, and dialogue really made DAO a true RPG.  Being "stuck" with a human from an established background disconnected me from Hawke a bit.  And sadly, the brief dialogue descriptions did not always match what Hawke said.  Sometimes, I even felt they were the complete opposite.  This took a lot of connection to Hawke away, I felt.  Instead of being able to choose whatever conversation option I felt most appropriate, I was stuck with one of three "attitudes," which may or may not be quite the response I was looking for.  A "humorous" reply, for instance, could range from mild sarcasm to self-deprecating joke to Denis Leary-style insult, and I could never really tell which one Hawke would decide to pull out that time.  I think going back to the non-voiced main character is the way to go.  Your imagination fills in the gaps, and lets you really step into the game world.  That connection brought me back to DAO four times, with at least one more still planned.  I still haven't finished a second DAII playthrough.

Combat:  I felt the combat in DAII the only real, complete improvement from DAO.  A lot of the other changes were either a little better and a little worse, or just slightly different without being better or worse.  Combat I felt was straight-up better.  I liked how Mages finally had decent spells that weren't going to punish everyone on their team, though a little friendly fire danger could be an interesting addition.  Playing sword-and-sheild, dual-wield, and two-handed really felt like completely different playstyles, instead of mostly similar with a few differences.  Once I got used to it, the new ability system is really nifty, and the new abilities themselves work slick.  If Sten had been able to fight like Fenris and my two-handed Hawke, I would have actually used him.  I especially like how traps and poisons seemed to be de-emphasized.  Honestly, going all the way back to KotoR, I've never found a real use for traps/mines.  They just don't work when you go to your enemies, rather than having the enemies come to you, which is how pretty much all RPGs play out.  By the time you can "pull" the enemies, you won't hvae time to trap the area, and if you take time to set up a defense of traps, you can't pull the enemies through them without running afoul of your own traps.  I did find that the NPC Rogue's trap detection area seemed GREATLY reduced from DAO to DAII, and it's caused me to run straight into almost every trap in the game.  Greater trap detection areas needed!

Crafting:  Again, loved it.  Crafting in DAO seemed to take up way too many inventory slots and way too much coin for the return provided, except for Runecrafting in Awakening.  This simplified system freed up much-needed inventory slots for other things, and wasn't a tremendous time and coin sink.  A little more depth could perhaps be added, but if I want to check ingredient lists and buy components to use an elaborate crafting system, I'll play EQ.

Sex:  Opening up the bisexual nature of the romantic interests was interesting, but I though it was done better in DAO where there were two straight and two bi love interests.  Much as I might have liked having a female Warden sleep with Morrigan (mostly because I've been crushing on Claudia Black since Farscape), it seemed right for Morrigan that she was stright, and right for Leliana that she was bi.  And even more so, how Leliana was much more reserved about her bisexuality than Zevran.  The characters' personalities seemed more important.  Being bi kind of suits Anders, I had a faint feeling about him even back in Awakening, but I just don't think it suits Fenris at all.  Likewise, while Isabela is the rather obvious feminine counterpart to Zevran, Merrill doesn't quite seem to have the vibe to me.  Perhaps widening the potential for romances in future games might be wise, but I think some characters should have definite sexual orientations. . . in fact, there could be some characters who are outright gay, and never interested in a romance with the opposite sex.  Now, having only explored once romance option, I liked the cinematic better and worse than in DAO.  My first playthrough, my male Hawke bedded Isabela, and I loved how the cinematic showed them being -- not rough, exactly, but intense.  Especially with them stripping each other of weapons, a very apropos detail.  I definitely got the impression that the scenes change quite a bit based on who your partner is, which is as it should be.  The scenes in DAO rapidly got boring, since the only change is in the models involved.  However, The scene just wasn't as sexy as the first time my Female Elf Wardon got it on with Leliana.  Part of it, I admit, was surprise. . . I hadn't owned the game long enough or delved deep enough into the strategy guide to have any clue what was awaiting me.  So yeah, I was surprised that not only was there lesbian romance, but an actual underwear-clad sex scene!  DAII just didn't hit that same level, in part, I think, because everyone kept their clothes on.  Which brings me to another point. . . why not just allow some nudity already?  Plenty of games are crossing that line these days, and with far less cause than Dragon Age could provide.

[Danyu]

Most of what I have to say has already been said, but Bioware mentioned they were looking for feedback, so here goes...

COMBAT:

I loved the fast, stylish combat. I actually thought it was a huge improvement over Dragon Age: Origins. In fact, when I first started playing Dragon Age II, I was blown away by the speed of it and thought it was incredibly fun. I definitely lean towards the way mobs were handled in Legacy though versus the main game. Mobs spawning in waves in directions all around you felt like the strategy of placing your characters was thrown out the window. There was a caption that would come up sometimes on the loading screen for Dragon Age II that said that using a 'choke method' with a warrior in the gap could be a beneficial strategy or something like that, but the game is designed where something like that was rather pointless.

Other than the 360 degree spawning enemies, I hope the combat stays very much the same though. It was fun, addicting, and it felt fresh.

STORY:

I don't think the Dragon Age II story gets the credit it deserves. The delivery of the overall story was far better than Origins in almost every way. I thought it was really neat how the smaller main plot quests all fed into the overarching storyline. I will say however that nothing quite grabbed me like when I first entered the Landsmeet in Origins and felt excitment chills to the bone when I was trying to win the audience over Logain. I think the character stories were nicely done and made sense. Though I do like some of the Origins characters more, I felt more involved with the Dragon Age II characters because of the Companion Quests. I got excited when I saw Companion Quests available in my log. The cutscenes were always intriguing to me.

Also, I should note that the conversations were handled really good, much better than Origins. The conversations were more fluid and life-like. Things such as this were obviously borrowed from Mass Effect, which doesn't bother me, but I do think something that should have been borrowed but wasn't, was this feeling of being heroic. I can't really seem to come up with the words for it, but to put it in the most simple form, I felt heroic in Origins, Mass Effect 1 and 2, but not so much as in Dragon Age II.

SOUND and MUSIC:

Loved music for both games, but liked the Origins music more. It had a more mystical quality about it. Most of my friends are gamers, and we all agree that music can sometimes make or break a game. I love the female singing in the background.

The voice overs were top-notch in Dragon Age II and hope they always remain that way. I think if Hawke's voiceover was pulled in Dragon Age III, I would feel cheated.

ENVIRONMENTS

I'm sure you've heard about it, know about it, and will continue hearing about this one - the repetitive environments. To be honest, when I heard about this before I even played my Dragon Age II copy I just figured people were nitpicking. I remember Origins having some repetitive environments in it as well. I'm not a nitpicker. In fact, it doesn't take much for a game's environments and graphics to make me happy. I'm pretty easy to please. The environments make it hard to defend this game. It degrades all the quality of work that went into the making of this game. It's sad because I thought the places looked initially great. I was impressed by the artistic look of it all. What insulted me was really the mini-map though. If it's impossible for me to go to a spot, please do not show it on the mini-map. I really don't think that is much to ask. I'd rather not even have a mini-map if it's going to be like that again.

I want to feel like I'm traveling to different places far off and wide. A reason I play fantasy games is see places I could never see. Give me that.

IMPORT SAVE

I felt like my import save didn't matter at all. I kind of felt cheated by this. i didn't see anything that seemed like a real change due to the choices I made in the first one. The only things that stood out were the quick run-in with the people that weren't wolves, and the Harrowmont aftermath due to supporting Bhelen.

I don't know if this was done due to storytelling difficulties, but I would have liked to seen a return of more Origins characters. I'm not going to be picky because I'm not telling the story, just playing it, but there's a huge selection of characters that I adored from the first one and I was hoping for more to return as companions or at least have bigger roles. This goes for Dragon Age III as well. I hope to see some Dragon Age II characters in the next installment, specifically Varric or Isabela.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

I ran across numerous bugs in the game. Every game has bugs, but the bugs seemed to stand out moreso in this one. I play on the 360, so I'm not sure if it's just me or not. Like when I would leave an area, it would say 'Gather party and leave area' or something close to that, and it would still show it on the loading screen. The animation used to take out your weapons when running around out of combat was buggy and wouldn't always respond in an appropriate way. Or when I would try to save, the game would consistently fail to save. I don't think I ever heard of a game failing to save until this game. Ever.

END COMMENTS

Despite any negative comments I made, I actually loved this game. I loved the characters, the story, the combat and replayability. Every game has flaws and not every person is ever going to be satisfied. People who remark that the game is trash, etc. are negating all of the positive stuff that went into this game.

Thank you for you time.

[asaiasai]

Seriously, the best thing you can do is return to the DAO model, if that requires giving Mike "it has an awesome button" Laidlaw a pink slip so be it.

Asai

[goandkissurmuthersbehind]

i just don't get one thing
the world map is HUGE
why are they wasting an entire game on just one city
theres tons to be told about thedas but they just let u spend ten years in kirkwall
and what do we learn out of it
the storyline interupted for me when morrigan walked tru that mirror
i'm still waiting for it to pick back up
i dont wanna be another pawn protagonist who doesnt know anything
i'm done being a puppet
this time i wanna be the puppeteer DA2 is just a story told by a shady dwarf
for all we know it might just be all lies
after DA O i was like wth
after DA2 i was like ok now i still dont know more
this game needs some storyline progresment
the only real story that DA2 carried was the pendant hawke carried and delivered at the elves
o yea and he instigated a war
but its still just stagnant storytelling if u ask me
idc bout how the games plays or wich armors they put in i'm here for the storyline
but all i do is see myself getting old and gray even before this story will ever be told

[Robtachi]

I have been playing through DA:O and DAII jointly again for import building purposes, and though the two games are different in so many ways, there seems to be one very particular aspect that constantly bothers me about DAII compared to DA:O...

The Loot.


Simply put, compared to Origins, looting in Dragon Age II is utterly joyless.

I know that must sound extreme but that is my pure, unfettered emotional reaction to that significant part of the game. I go back into Origins and actively push myself to see if there's any way I can finish certain plot events sooner than usual or challenge myself to take on a boss perhaps before I've leveled appropriately, just because I know that at the end of that arduous task, there is some phat loot waiting to make my Warden stronger, faster and hit harder than he has any business doing at such an early stage. Heck, in Awakening, I actually did the Blackmarsh quest before Kal Hirol, which was bonkers silly because it meant, thanks to the auto-triggering plot events, Sigrun never took her Joining. All because I wanted to enjoy the Armor of the Sentinel and Vigilance for just a few more hours than I'm typically supposed to.

And this was all done for the sake of items that I've collected several times already in previous playthroughs - not even new things.

When I play Dragon Age II, particularly back-to-back with DA:O as I have been doing lately, I feel nothing when it comes to collecting loot. I know that 99% of it is worthless junk - and I don't just mean the "junk" loot, I mean the generic armor, weapons and particularly the utterly lousy rings and amulets that all do something similarly useless. What is the point of all that? If you've beaten one boss or tough enemy, or shelled out for one expensive trinket, you've probably already got something equipped that's approximately a frabillion times better than the 7 pieces of flotsam and jetsam that some Coterie Thug swiped off the back of a milk truck right before impaling himself on your Irving R. Pointystick.

But that's not where the true problem lies; it's with the "special" loot. There's no Sentinel Armor Set or Vigilance or Landsmeet Shield or Voice of Velvet for me to excitedly push myself forward, beyond the limits of my player character, to obtain as soon as I can get my grubby Dust Town mitts on them. By comparison, there are so fewer complete item sets in DAII than in Origins (heck, even the vanilla chainmails and plate armors had set bonuses in Origins) - and those that do have their bonuses poorly indicated - and precious few items that provide codices, which is something that provides avid looters such as myself hours of extra, deep immersion. And for what? A few lines of text about the Avvar barbarians or the Orlesian assassin who slept with every mark before using the boots you just picked up to vanish from the scene after finishing the job. Where is all that extra good stuff that only serves to enrich the looting experience? In Origins, I never neglected to pick up any item with a unique name without reading its description first, but you can't even do that in DAII... why? It just seemed like the player was being encouraged to rush through the looting aspect via sheer boredom and lack of fulfillment that it provided, such that you're forced to simply focus on other parts of the gameplay because you are getting no additional enjoyment from loot.


I'm starting to lose my focal point here, but it's essentially this:

Looting felt shallow and massively stripped down, and I really never understood why. But it's just not the same sort of fulfillment as one got in Origins.

[Requiesta De Silencia]

I dislike how everyone and everything seems to be the same over the course of six years in the game.

I don't know but for some strange reason when 6 years pass in my neighborhood new people move in, old people move out, houses are demolished and built, new parks and areas are redesigned, and new businesses open. How the heck can these people manage to stay exactly the same for 6 years? Not even a new wrinkle

[Rafficus III]

This is not a hateful criticism. This is not me making a reference to how Origins walked on water or how Bethesda/TW2 are the RPG saviors. This is a fan of this company since the days of Baldur's Gate saying I love the series: both Origins and DA2. This is a fan listing they actually like improvements within this game and looks forward to what more Bioware has to offer. This is a fan who is tired of listening to irrationality and people being angry to be angry by lashing out about tedious changes. The same fan who realized that sales in this game are not decreasing because DA2 is a bad game, but because of the squabbling bandwagon that is actively trying to drive out the "casuals" by a superiority complex mixed with disloyalty.
Criticisms of DA2:
-Slow the combat down minimally, but keep it faster than Origins. I could watch paint dry faster than Origins.
-Make more cameos and easter eggs showing how prior games or choices affected the current game as a tribute.
-If you do loot, place more detail into it rather than ornate ring or fancy sash. Please, you're Bioware, I know what is quality work from this studios and what is half attempted.
-More options for different companion armor to cycle through for customization.
-Lose some of the Final Fantasy looking weapons or at least make them have logical requirements. Meaning I do not want to see a dainty female elf carrying around a 2H great sword like it's a toy.
-Expand the world and prevent recycling of maps/areas/housing.
-Minimize the bugs within the game. I am speaking of the undying enemies if you attack them too early.
-And last but not least, take your time in production of this game. Work out all the bugs, make sure this is an end product you are proud of, and make this product what Dragon Age is about. Do not make this game simply to appease me, the critics, new crowds, or the upset people with pitchforks and torches. Make this game how Bioware wants to make it. Not in the fans image, not EA's image, just Bioware's. This is art, great art is meant to simply be and rather than for.
Positives:
-Keep the dialogue wheel. I know this is a split decision, but please, I found a voiced character to be far more engaging than that of a blank staring mute. Origins protagonist killed what several would be moments could have been.
-Keep improving the visuals and art style to provide uniqueness as seen with the Qunari and elves.
-Keep making choices difficult and pertinent to player's choice rather than the simple black and white what's right and wrong.
-Please keep up with making memorable characters.
And last but not least, please stay as the Bioware I know. I've played your games for over ten years now and I'll continue to stick it out and enjoy the projects you distribute. I normally go for a more eloquent approach, but this just was not the case today. Stay awesome Bioware, and I cannot wait for DA3 or more DA2 DLC.

[doctor echo]

For those who have played Dragon Age II; finished the game and saved(as many times as you did) and want to play through as a totally new character...DO NOT SELECT NEW GAME!!! AS IT WILL ERASE ALL OF YOUR PREVIOUSLY SAVED DATA!!!

One would think that there would be better file management to facilitate multiple replays while still preserving saved data; especially on the next gen consoles. I don't mind replaying; but i do think deleting the previous saves without even a warning message prior to doing so is just so "old"

Did anyone else experience this; or am i just too "old" to have expected something that was common in older games tobe remedied on today's gaming consoles.

Share your experiences with me...

[Danyu]

I play on the 360 and I never experienced any issues with my prior data deleting itself when I started a new game.

[Range Rover]

Danyu wrote...

I play on the 360 and I never experienced any issues with my prior data deleting itself when I started a new game.

Same here i'm 360 and never had that problem. Maybe time to upgrad your console OP(Doctor E)?  Just a thought.

Modifié par Range Rover, 10 septembre 2011 - 04:22 .

[mdigs150]

quick question if any bioware guys are still reading: is there any chance of a return to the armour levelling style of origins in the nest installment? it bugs me how some of the "superduper" armour sets you pick up in da2 are outclassed within an hour of getting them by some random loot from one of the grunts hanging around lowton

[Firky]

My constructive criticism would be that "Bhaalspawn" has 2 of the letter a and one of the letter l. (In a Baldur's Gate context, anyway.)

But I really just thought I'd pop into this thread to mention the Nexus Golem fight in Act 2. I'm loving it. (Uh, I'm on about my 6th try - haven't cracked it, yet.) I think it really works because it is optional, punishing, and beautifully illustrates different ways to deal with the wave mechanic. All of my attempts have played out really differently. And, I'm finding that positioning is really important, too. (Like, the corridor works great for the first group, but then you just get overwhelmed and need to spread out.)

I would have loved to see more optionals like this in the DAII base game. (But Legacy did have heaps of optional encounters.) But, lots and lots of waves can be good!

[Kenta Shuuichi]

I shall introduce my opinion by first saying I loved both Origins (and its expansions) and Dragon Age 2, but really 2 takes the cake.  I do not know if it was for the impact such a personal story has in contrast to the wider scope found in Origins, but I found the story to be much more engaging and also found that you can really jump into the player character shoes easier, making it easier to empathize. 

Simply put, you can play YOURSELF, and that makes the interactions with the lovable companions, NPC, and the whole world all that much more satisfying, because it is you who is making all that happen.  The game allows us to form emotional connections to the world and the companions much better than Origins, and that is the part I liked more about it.  I personally put much more value on story than other aspects, so the gameplay changes for me actually were for the best as they made combat more entertaining and fluid while keeping it deep enough for most players at certain difficulties. Also the class system is more intuitive and, while I regret the loss of classes such as Arcane Warrior or Spirit Warrior (combat oriented mage and warrior specialization respectively) I found the gains outweighed the cons handily.

But there is one thing I really, REALLY disliked, and is the lack of a replay function. I will elaborate, just so you dont get me wrong:

The one thing that dissappoints me about Dragon Age, both 2 and Origins, is
the lack of a function for importing your character of a completed
playthrough to a fresh one,a New Game + so to say. In Origins is not that necessary since there
are good bugs that allow you to reach the level cap nicely, but in
Dragon Age 2 is downright impossible to even get close to that cap
without cheating, and even that is now prevented by the patches. Part
of what makes Mass Effect 1 & 2 so great is the fact that you can
play through several cycles of game with the same character and keep
getting him stronger each time, while also enjoying the adjusting
difficulty and the challenge associated to it, as well as making it far
more rewarding to get as strong as you can be but taking different
decisions every time.

I do not know, maybe it is just personal preference,
but that sort of thing really makes the life of a game much longer,
resulting in happier consumers and removing the need to cheat to get
stronger as you DO get stronger naturally with every completed playthrough. If that was
possible, I would appreciate a DLC was made to allow just that, though I
do not know if that can be done.
Aside from that, I really loved the game and I really hope the next is done in a similar fashion.

Thanks for reading it.

[Almostfaceman]

I have just bought and played through the game like 3 times so far on my PC. I liked Dragon Age 1, and I'm stuck at home sick so I thought I'd try Dragon Age 2 despite all the negative buzz on this forum.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoy Dragon Age 2 more than the first. There's always room for improvement but over-all I'm a happy camper.

[darrylzero]

Checking back in with the forums after a pretty long absence, and it's nice to see this is still going.  I think the troubles I had with DA2 boil down to three things:

1) An inability to attempt to resolve conflict without fighting.  As a rogue, the removal of stealth as an out-of-combat mechanic hurt the most, but my issue is broader.  None of my characters ever want to engage in combat if they don't have to. 

My lower-level characters are scared they're going to die, and it really kills immersion for me for them to be constantly ready to fight when the situation calls for it.  No, they'll run first and fight if they're forced to or if the stakes are high enough.  I thought the origins of DAO did a great job of showing us characters who have a real reason to get violent.  Much of it was relatively desperate, but the male city elf made sense to me too.  By contrast, helping out the guard with those deserters at the entrance of Kirkwall?  No way, I'm taking off.  Let the authorities deal with the disgruntled soldiers, that's way above my pay grade.

My higher-level characters start to develop an awareness of their responsbilities, and might be more willing to use violence, but it's also likely to sadden them more.  Fortunately, they also have other skills they can make use of.  Stealth would be great.  Invisibility spells for parties who don't want to use rogues.  Bribery, blackmail, intimidation, seduction, bluffing, the ability to run away.  That stuff is the bread and butter of RPGs for me.  I know that's not the DA goal, and I'm comfortable with a combat-focused game, but I need to feel like my character can try some of those things more often or I can't really identify with my character.

2) What felt to me like an issuficiently thought out black market economy (political economy, really, I suppose).  It may be a small thing, but if I could have raised that 50 gold by smuggling and stealing, I would have been really happy.  I think having more missions related to your first-year employers to raise that 50 gold would have been a big help there (accommodating both criminally-inclined characters and those who are not).   I think it would have been really cool to have those end up being factions, with the mercenaries being employed by a wealthy merchant trying to protect his/her business from the smugglers.  Both sides could force to compromise your morals at some point, or turn on your employer. 

I think that could have been really cool.  It could still be really cool in a future game.  Chris Avellone talked about an RPG half-based on the Wire, which makes my brain light up like crazy.  Two origins for DA3 perhaps, one with the city guard and one with the criminals, intertwining stories that end up in the same place somehow?  Sounds great to me.

Anyway, I outlined a lot what I mean with regard to the first two points in greater detail here:

http://social.biowar...index/7218729/1

3) Not feeling threatened enough by being in an apostate family.  This has been discussed plenty, but let me take the time to say that it connects to my point #1 as well.  I think the game would be more fun if the authorities (and other groups) were scarier and needed to be avoided.  Sneaking around and such hoping to avoid those gangs in the street would be much more engaging than just knowing I'd have to kill 20 some thugs, because it would add suspense.

My favorite moment in DAO was setting out with Allistair and Morrigan from Flemeth's hut with a big sense of "Holy crap, what do we do now?  We're not up to this."  The most exciting feeling about that was compounded by a keen sense of vulnerability once we encountered Loghain's men in Lothering.  He was after us.  I would have loved it if at that juncture, Leliana could have suggested a hiding place for a while until things blew over, but the different hubs work well enough for that if you want to think about it that way (Dalish for elves and Redcliffe for humans, at least).

That was one of the most exciting possibilities for DA2, one that I thought didn't fully come through.  You're hiding in this city, trying to avoid discovery.  That's cool!  Play it up.  Have quests that involve bribing officials, making documents disappear, reluctantly assassinating Templars who are after you or Bethany.  Some of that comes through, and some of it we hear that Varic is doing, but I would have loved for that to be a central aspect of the story.

So, for the future, I hope you'll remember that really menacing power structures are fun for some of us (because they're scary and because echoes of real-world authoritarianism add gravity), and quests designed to protect yourself from them are fun.  It doesn't have to be because those structures are inherently bad (though it could be, maybe in Tevinter).  Loghain had his reasons, and the Templars in Kirkwall absolutely had theirs.  But in real life, that would be terrifying, and the thought of using violence against them to strike back strategically, carefully, should also be terrifying, even if it's violence that's necessary to protect yourself.  If DA3 could bring some of that back (or even DA2 through DLC), if it could make the use of violence feel like an important and dangerous choice (as well as one with real moral consequences), you'd have me back in a heartbeat. 

But I can't role play a character who is just constantly wading through the bodies of slain foes.  It doesn't do anything for me.  If I can't avoid combat -- or most importantly, try to avoid combat -- then violence never feels like a choice, or even something that feels like my character is forced into.  It just feels like a mechanic, and I don't find that very fun.

Modifié par darrylzero, 16 septembre 2011 - 03:16 .

[Bonkz]

I'm just gonna write a few things that, in my humble opinion, should be rectified/looked at in a possible future Dragon Age 3.
I'm not gonna write about reused environments, wave combat, the emptyness of kirkwall and the disconnect with the story with those long time gaps, since these have been mentioned like a billion times and are known issues. Will only mention some major and minor things that i, personally, didn't like from the first moment i played DA2. I write these as constructive criticism, as the thread title says of course.

1. The inventory system. There was something terribly wrong with the way items were rated in the inventory and the way weapons and armor affected my character while leveling. What was the logic behind the decision that armor and weapons should scale with levels? This is a single player RPG not an MMO. An armor or weapon should provide a set amount of bonuses throughout the game and you should look for better items while playing and exploring the game. DA:O did this right, i don't see why DA2 was any different. Also.....personally i thought that the star rating system on items was the worst thing i've seen in a long time and something i never expected to see in a Bioware RPG. It reminded me of console games made for kids under 12 (no offence to consoles of course).

2. The inability to talk to my companions whenever i wanted. The idea of living in a city and having my companions living their own lives and being in different places wasn't bad at all. But i would like to be able to chat with them and ask them about stuff. Also, their personal quests.....a companion wants to talk to me, but i can't initiate conversation while standing next to him, he wants me to be in the Hanged man or somewhere else. I would rather have them start a conversation at key points in the game or maybe some random encounters that initiate their quests. The automatic quest adding was a bit cheap.

3. The combat speed. I know this has obviously been mentioned before but i have a certain complain about it. My biggest problem with the combat in DA2 was the fact that all the creatures/enemies in the game attack my party at normal speed, while my group of adventurers attack them like they've been possessed by demons. This might not be an issue for some/most people but for me it killed the fun. It felt like the enemies (especially the humans, since it shows more) were leftovers from DA:O while i imported my companions from a Devil May Cry game. Yes i agree that combat in DA:O was slow, but at least the game looked "real" in the sense that, everyone attacked at the same speed (unless you were under a spell influence). Seeing enemies in DA2 attacking me and swinging their swords once while in that time i was able to swing it 5 times, made me feel really disappointed.

(EDIT) 4. Non-combat skills. You can't have an RPG without character skills like persuation, potion making and things like that. It really adds to the whole value of the game to be able to do extra stuff based on your skills.

That's it for now. There are some other stuff that i will not go into now, cause i think they are really minor and wouldn't make a big difference if they weren't changed.

Modifié par Bonkz, 17 septembre 2011 - 04:33 .

[Sister Goldring]

Hi,

Just wondering why this thread was unstickied.....unstuck......had the drawing pin removed?

Thanks.

[Demx]

My guess is that they are only looking for feedback from Legacy now. So if you are late to the caring game you're SOL. Perhaps the Legacy sticky will even be replaced with Mark of Assassin.

I believe each of these threads should remain stickied, since not everyone is going to purchase the DLCs, or want to give opinions that relate to that specific DLC.

[jackkel dragon]

Here's a repost of what I recently posted elsewhere, so it's in the right place and I don't need to re-write the whole post.

Since I've already ranted elsewhere about Dragon Age 2 and many of my points have been made or aren't very popular, I'm going to just make a few feedback suggestions about a specific topic: the presentation of dialogue options.

While I feel the icon dialogue wheel is an overall improvement in communicating tone to the player, the paraphrases tend to be short and don't always give the entire meaning of the line. My suggestion would be to create a system like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where the icon wheel and a short paraphrase are retained but highlighting a spoke will give a more detailed version of the line that would be spoken. Like in DX, the preview doesn't have to be the entire line, just enough to give the player a better understanding of what their character will say.

Another, nitpicky and aesthetic suggestion of mine is that the dialogue wheel be moved outside of the letterbox, or an option to set where the wheel appears. This mostly just keeps the dialogue wheel out of the way of the action, and is mostly of interest to players recording videoes or taking screenshots. Still, if it's possible to slip that feature in a future game I'm sure some people would like it (and those who don't could use the toggle to ignore it.)

[guybrush threepwad]

Combat- Better than Origins. Liked:
+ Cross class Combos
+ In Origins I never played rogue as I didn't want to have to position to backstab, backstab ability solves this
+ Faster, more cinematic
- Wanted dual wielding warrior
- Waves

Story/Characters
+ More original/less cliche storyline
- Needed more meaningful decisions particulary at end
- Wanted greater ability to control conversations with party members. Need more branching/less unidirectional conversations. Conversations with party members kinda felt like missions.

Other
+ Voiced Protagonist
- Felt trapped in Kirkwall/ Want to travel more
- Recycling combat areas
- Needs to be longer

[Relshar]

Anyone mentioned that enemies seem to skydive into the fight just when you think its over?
Or the recycled maps, lack of race choice?
Healing spells have to much of a cooldown as well and the AOE healing auras are not big enough because mages have to get into close combat and mages are squishy.
No toolset for the game to the players can actualy fix what BioWare broke.

Lack of bonding with your party members no dialouges with them unless in their homes, I liked the party camp more. No customization for the party either you get a nice set of armour for the rouge/warrior and they cant wear it nor can your character due to you being a mage.

Modifié par Relshar, 07 octobre 2011 - 06:17 .