2797 réponses à ce sujet

[AnotherStupidAccount]

I've played through DA2 once now (40+ hours), and am about halfway through a second playthrough. My thoughts on the game (good stuff first):

Pros:
1. The graphics have improved from DA:O. They still aren't what I'd call amazing, but they're good.
2. Voice actors for NPCs did a good job; whoever voiced the Arishok and Merrill were particular favorites. And it was an interesting choice to have the VAs use different accents for the various races.
3. I really liked the work that Bioware put into redesigning the races for DA2. I was surprised at first, seeing the changes made to the elves and the qunari, but it was a nice surprise. I hope Bioware keeps that redesign for DA3.
4. I was happy to see that companions bantering/arguing with one another made it into this game--some of their lines were pretty amusing.

Cons (minor):
1. The constant reuse of a very few maps. I know a lot of people have brought this up, but you can add my voice to the refrain: please don't do this again, Bioware. Whatever your intention, it comes across as lazy and sloppy.
2. Using the Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel/a fully-voiced Hawke. The voices for both male and female Hawke didn't sound anything like I imagined my character should, and of course having to hire VAs for Hawke pretty much guaranteed that s/he'd be limited to being just one race, unlike DA:O. 
3. Bugs. The game froze on me six times in my first playthrough, and there was a period in Act 3 where the templars following Meredith around were nothing but helmets and weapons--no bodies. Then NPCs' faces started disappearing, leaving only their hair. Bizarre.
4. The game is extremely linear. I was worried about this when I first learned that DA2 would take place over a period of years, and my fears were realized. In DA:O, if I left an area I could always go back to it later if I wished, but since Hawke doesn't have a time machine, you really can't go back to Act 1 once you've started Act 2.
5. Junk loot, with no descriptions and almost no value. If Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall (and rich), why is he picking up 'torn trousers' and 'motheaten scarves'? It might make sense in Act 1, when Hawke's a poor refugee trying to raise cash, but later? Not so much. I mean, I'm not a Champion and I'm certainly not rich, but it still wouldn't occur to me to pick up someone else's ripped pants if I found them somewhere and try to sell them. And what sort of weirdo is hiding such things in locked chests within monster-infested caverns, anyway? Hint: traditionally in RPGs that's where valuable things are kept, not the monsters' latest donation to Goodwill.

Cons (major):
1. Kirkwall. I've probably spent about 65+ hours in DA2 by now, and I'm still wondering--why does Hawke care about this city? I never felt any sense of belonging, even after I became the Champion in my first playthrough. It's especially problematic because 80% of the game is played in Kirkwall, you can't escape it, and yet the city feels lifeless and doesn't seem to evolve over time or respond to anything you do. Honestly, by the middle of Act 2 I was looking for an option that said "Pack up Hawke's stuff and get the *$&#^ out of Dodge". If you're going to force players to stay in one place for most of the game, that place had better be an interesting and engaging character in its own right, and Kirkwall simply isn't. I didn't care about the city's fate and didn't feel as if Hawke had any real impact on Kirkwall, other than the appearance of a really awful statue at the docks in Act 3 that I wanted to detonate as soon as I saw it. 
2. The 'rise to power' concept. On the back of the DA2 box, it says 'rise from warrior to legend', which sounded really intriguing at first. But then Hawke became the Champion and...hmm. What power was he supposed to have, again? Because nobody in the game (companions, love interests, major NPCs) seemed to have any interest in listening to him. 'Champion' is a pretty empty title when it doesn't come with cash, troops, or the ability to sway the opinion/actions of anyone, even the person Hawke's romancing. If Hawke's so powerful and influential, why doesn't he have minions of his own by Act 3? A power base of some kind? Instead, Hawke was an errand boy when he came to Kirkwall, and he was an errand boy all the way through the end of the game. And on a related note, my biggest Con of all:
3. Choice. Bioware, you've built your reputation on the idea of choice and consequences in your games, and there were so many choices I could make in DA:O, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, etc...so what went wrong here? My characters in Bioware games have always been able to make a difference in their worlds, for better or worse, but not Hawke. Hawke's choices never feel meaningful. He felt more like a spectator to the events in Kirkwall, not an active participant, because no matter what he did it all seemed to turn out the same anyway. At the end of the game, I watched the final cutscene with a sense of frustration and futility, which are not the emotions I want to be feeling at the end of an epic RPG. If I want to be ignored by important people, make decisions that don't matter, and put a lot of effort into trying to solve problems that turn out to be unsolvable, well...I call that 'life', and I get it for free every day, no need to pay $60 for more of the same. I know you were probably trying to create hard, morally ambiguous choices, 'shades of grey' and all that, but the end result was closer to 'shades of brown'--all the choices were equally crappy.

In conclusion, let me just say this. "Dragon Age 2" is a mediocre game, not a bad one. However, over the years I'd come to trust Bioware as a company that produced consistently high-quality RPGs, and your games were among the very few that I was willing to preorder and pay full price for. I feel that your decision to release "Dragon Age 2" in its present condition was an abuse of that trust. At the age of 35, I have too many demands on my time and money to waste either on mediocre games. My experience with DA2 means that I will not be preordering "Dragon Age 3" or buying it on the day of release--I'll be waiting to see the reviews.

[Gentleman Moogle]

Here are my thoughts:

Combat mechanics -- I enjoyed the faster-pace of DA2's combat, it was fun and exciting to use. Combat itself became dull and repetitive the longer I played, however, because of the lack of enemy variety. Also, even though I'm on the Xbox, I would prefer a return of the Isometric camera. It would be much more enjoyable to get a full view of the battlefield during certain scrapes.

Also: The bloodsplosions are both silly and take up large parts of the screen. One or two wouldn't be bad, but the constant flow of blood and gibbets is distracting and makes it difficult to see what's going on.

Companion Banter -- Very clever writing here, when it appears, but the lack of any method of conversing with your companions outside their homes was very limiting and made it difficult to view them as anything more than one-dimensional damage machines during missions. More interaction would be very nice.

Storyline: I realize that some folks are polarized on this one, but the story just didn't grab me. The year-jumping made each of the three acts feel disjointed and disconnected, and the way the story flowed made me feel like I was having no impact on anything that was happening. I understand that this was supposed to be a smaller personal story rather than the world-spanning one of DA:O, but I felt like a glorified errand boy throughout the whole thing. Worse, when the major plot points started occurring, I felt like I was a bystander. I was an NPC in what was supposed to be my story, without the power to change or affect anything in a meaningful way.

Bugs: My lord, these were bad. I value immersion above any other game quality, and the amount of bugs in this release ripped me out of my immersion at every turn. The worst offender was Merrill's Act 3 quest where the entire quest plays out-of-order.

[VanDraegon]

The new look of the Darkspawn is a bit silly, imo. In origins they looked intimidating, diseased, corrupt and evil.

[0btuse]

Story: I like the direction taken with the story. True, spanning over years took a little out of the flow and put a lack of a big villain. But it was a BOLD move to break out of the mold we see in almost EVERY story.

A journey rather than a quest. Even then, they had a villian [of some sort] or vague goal in every act. But I feel it was the lack of a main focus in the Acts that irked me and left me confused.



Main quest: Doing minor jobs to gather 50 gold in Act 1? This was the worst, The only way to achieve my main goal is to finish many small goals? I felt like I was grinding. In act 2 the Qunari were the major threat, but it felt like they weren't present for a majority of the Act, and they were't really enemies till the very end. Act 3 left me tired of the overbearing personalities of Meredith and Orsoni handing out quests.

The main quests didn't feel like they were inportant as main quests should be. A lot of the time it was hard to tell apart a side quest from the main ones.The driving motivation for me to complete the game was the interactions with companions and the Romance sidestories. Don't get me wrong, I love how the story was written [thats how Bioware rolls, extremely well written plots] but I don't like how it was translated into the gameplay.



Bugs: Too many for a full release of a game. This is very disappointing. I am completely honest when I say I would have prefered that the games release was pushed to a later date than have to have seen all the glaring bugs that littered the game.

Too many times have I had to see a CtD, force-close the game or reload an old save  because the Esc menu wouldnt show up or a companion went missing and wouldnt show up. And then there are the bugs in plot specific conversations with companions. This made me very sad because the companion stories were the saving grace in the game for me. I feel like I have to swear off the game until the patches are released to get to play the game for the correct way the stories should be. All of this could have been avoided with more time spent in testing.



Characters: These were the shining gems of the game. Every companion had deep and well written stories. Even the stories of NPCs tugged at my heart and made every decision a big one. The interactivity with companions has also improved from DA:O, they are more involved with the MC and banter between them expanded my view and undertanding of them. The restriction of Companion conversations to their homes isn't too bad [people feel comfortable at home] I think it cold be a little more free. While I still yearn for the Companion interactivity of Baldur's Gate, DA2 reached out to me here.



Theres so much I can say about the game that I've seen from the 2 playthough I've had, but I don't want to add more to the huge wall of text already here.

I love Bioware games. I have played almost every one of your games from waaay back with Fallout and Baldur's Gate. While the unfinished feel of the game has hurt my faith in you, I still await pre-order the next in the Dragon Age series.

Please don't let me down again.

[Edit: PS- EDWINA FOR DLC CHARACTER!!]

Modifié par 0btuse, 23 mars 2011 - 01:24 .

[Shadowcrazy4]

more customization

I want to be an Elf again like in origins
I want the old dialogue system back
I want a better combat system that isn't JRPG anime fighting
I want a relationship that only takes at the most a week and not 7 years
I want DIVERSE areas and not the same maps copy/pasted
I want my choices to ACTUALLY MAKE AN IMPACT on the world and change it
I want to TELL MY OWN STORY...not have somebody else tell it for me
I want to have freedom again

[Stelae]

OK - finished my first playthrough, and overall, I enjoyed it a lot. But there were a few times where Bioware's usually excellent standards dropped. A bit more QA would have been nice; but I'm sure that's been said enough. It was pretty (to my eyes, at least) and well written, with enough references to DAO but not so many that it became a distraction.

I didn't go into it expecting it to be DA-More Origins. I think if I had, I'd have been sorely let down, because the scope was different. DA2 is its own creature, and that is, I think, a disappointment to some people who could happily wander Ferelden forever. (And you know, if you Bioware guys get the urge to produce a game where that happens? I'm so there!) But on its own terms, the setting and world building were pretty good.

I know I'm in the minority, but I liked the fact that you stayed in one location - it's unusual in an RPG, and while I know it irritated a lot of people, I figure that IRL locations get re-used all the time. You can't expect a perfectly good cave to stay empty when there are so many smugglers, secret societies and so forth wandering about looking for digs. Kirkwall had a nifty Italian city-state vibe, for me anyhow, which suited the politics.

The framed narrative approach worked well, and again, it's unusual. The writing was great, the characters were mostly interesting, although I thought Sebastian was a wasted opportunity, and the dialogue wheel was OK, although it did seem to boil down to 3 ways of saying the same thing a lot of the time, rather than an actual narrative choice.

Here's my main beef: whereas in DAO I really felt like my choices - down to every conversation I had - were making a difference to the game, in DA2, it didn't seem to matter what I chose. Maybe the choice was an illusion in DAO, and it is more transparent in DA2 how linear the plot is. But all the same, it's frustrating when all your choices don't make a blind bit of difference to the way things play out. I wasn't helping create the story; I was merely being told it. Act 3 was a frustrating, rail-roading experience, especially the finale. Bioware games usually don't feel like that.

[huwie]

I didn't mind the waves of enemies so much, but then I generally moved away from the ambush point so I didn't see them spawning, which was less immersion-breaking. And it's not as if you could never see them spawning in DA:O.

Boss fights: I found them tedious because it was often a matter of repeating a pattern multiple times. Once you'd figured out the pattern, the rest was running the same procedure repeatedly, waiting for the boss's HP to be ground down. A few times I reduced the difficulty because the rinse-repeat just got too boring. I found the DA:O boss fights much more engaging.

Another issue with boss fights: the spectral "door" that sometimes locks you into the boss arena. I'm not a big fan of this kind of technique in the first place, since it represents a big immersion-breaking Bioware hand reaching through the fourth wall, but I've been living with it since BG and I don't expect it to change ... I do however expect all my party (& dog) to end up on the same side of the door as myself, which wasn't always the case (probably more likely when using "Hold").

On that subject: "Hold" should do what it says, and what it did in DA:O. The DA2 implementation of Hold makes complete tactical control impossible, since the characters don't honour the request to stay put. Related to this, I missed having control (direct, tactics and level-up) of Dog.

I liked the way tactics still operated when I had multiple characters selected, but they still seemed prone to running off (probably triggered by tactics) -- the main reason I select multiple characters is that I want to position them. I know I could use Hold to achieve this, but it's less fluid and more error-prone if you have to Hold and Unhold them all the time. Automatically applying "hold" to the characters who are selected, would remove this burden from the player, and deliver the desired behaviour most of the time (I think).

I wished that there had been more detailed quest descriptions in the Journal, instead of the new "terse" style of descriptions. When running several quests concurrently, it would have been nice (and immersion-boosting) to be able to refresh my memory of the details, both during the quest and for reflection once it was completed.

[Jiso]

Over all, I would say this is yet another fantastic game by Bioware. I do, however, have a few gripes with it:

Reused maps

I dont really need to expand on this, other people have pretty much covered this for me.

Character Creation

I would say the character creation was great, just like all other bioware games, but there are a few things that bothered me. First, they shouldn't have made the background black. With most of my characters I normally use black hair, but due to the black background I cant tell if it actually looks good on the character or not. Secondly, I thought bioware would have expanded more to the character creation process; such as new tattoos and eye colors. I dont think there was any new tattoos at all, so this was very disapointing to me.

Armor 

ENOUGH WITH THE ROBES ALREADY! I was so excited when i saw the robes of the champion on the trailer. I thought to myself, "Finally! a game where they actually have cool armor for mages." Unfortanatly, that wasn't the case. imagine my dissapointment as I go to my friendly neighborhood armor merchent to purches new armor for my mage, and it's the same old boring robes everyone complained about in DAO. PLEASE BIOWARE, drop the robes, and make better armor like robes of the champion.
As for warriors and rogues, I like the armor i only wish there was a larger variety. It seems like most armor looks the same, just different colors. I'm not saying all the armor should look different, but I do think ther should be more than four basic models. 

Spells 

The spells they had  were awesome; However, my problem is there is not enough. They are missing a lot of really cool spells from DAO. For example, animate dead is one of my favorite spells in DAO, but its not in the new one. I also wish there were more big spells, like tempest and fire storm. I really hope on the next one they will add more spirt spells that actually do damage. I love the way spirit spells look in this one but there are only two spells that do damage, and one is a over time damage spell. I would love to play a pure spirit  character but there isn't enough good spells to support it on this game. My last complaint is of other mages in the game using spells that my character can't use. So if my character is some amazing champion, why are there run-of-the-mill mages using spells that my character can't learn? talk about feeling inferior...

 On a positive note, I think the black and blue flames on spirit spells are the coolest thing ever!

Cut Scenes

I love that I am given the option to choose if I want my helmet to actually appear  in the gameplay or not with out losing the armor benifits of have a helmet. But in most cut scenes my helmet is off. When i played as a mage and got the hood of the champion, I thought it was awesome, so changed my options to display the helmet in the gameplay. I also wanted to see the hood in cut scenes when im talking to people. I know there were complaints about the helmet being on in the cut scenes before, but I wish I was given the option to fit my preference.

[montpoupon]

I finished my first playthrough as well. For the amount of time and enjoyment I got out of it I'm amazed how, for a game released on March 8, already "reviewers" were posting up their "reviews" of the game by March 9. Doesn't seem like one could do the the game justice that way.

At any rate my thoughts...

I liked the combat system - it reminds me a lot of the combat system in KOTOR - I played a guardian there which reminds me a bit of the rogue here. The enemy waves were a bit silly though. If reinforcements needed to arrive, seems like it'd make more sense for them to come in through doors and alleys instead of falling from 10 feet high out of everywhere. That said, I liked how the focus shifted away from 6 second heals and potion spam to the current model.

Once you choose a class, warrior/mage/rogue - any armor you pick up should just be armor appropriate for your class. Seems a bit sloppy to be receiving armor for the other two classes throughout the entirety of this single player game.

I liked the overall story structure and concept. I really liked that it was a departure from the standard Bioware formula of being the last jedi/warden/(or first)spectre/kungfu school student, etc.. I feel that the approach for the story was geared to an older audience actually. I would've liked to have seen more new areas open up with each major stage completing. In my mind, as your capability grew with each stage, why wouldn't you have gotten some form of advanced transport to visit additional areas?

I would've liked to have had more of a denouement with my companions, like in DAO.

Please fix cutscene out of order quest bug. >___<;

Like everyone else, more zones would've been nice. I think especially for this game however, a day/night cycle would've really raised the level of immersion and enjoyment of the game. Let the user fast forward to day or night with the map still if they want to... but I think in terms of a RPG, being able to watch the sun set over the steps in Hightown would have been a very nice experience indeed.

I realize the technology has consistently seemed out-of-reach for Bioware, but it would be very nice to have hair that goes past one's shoulders in the game.

All in all I've enjoyed DA2 quite a bit. Time is precious to me, so I don't mind the fast development cycle - in fact I'm quite impressed. That said, just an additional 3-4 months of well... "polish" such as the small niggling points I've made above would've been nice.

[Dragoonlordz]

I'll point out right away this isn't a hate thread and I am not a hater or a fanboy or troll, I'm a customer who likes some things and not others just like everyone else. It's just an opinion one that lists some good some bad, some you agree on and some you don't. But just because I list more thing's didn't like that doesn't mean I hate the game it means that the thing's (not mentioned in here) are things I liked or was happy enough with that I would be happy to keep the same in DA3. While at the same time not puffing up the ego's of the devs they have to realise if someone doesn't complain about a specific aspect in the game it's because they did a good enough job on it in the first place that the person didn't voice any concern about it.


Race/Origins/Titles and Enviroment
Choice who and what my champion is, whether rogue, mage, warrior, female, male, elf, ankle biter or human even Qunari. Also the ability to become hero on things I choose to do (route I take more specifically and decisions I choose such as a selection or variation in titles if you use titles again depending on route you take through the game like save a city or let it burn give different titles much like how origins gave you such choices is by far the best option for me). More open world where each area has its own feel and unique such both within a city(s) and towns and far outside it. Choices of character race/class and personally background (origin).

DLC and Replayability
Given it is around a year or two between new releases and fact they keep making DLC to keep people playing and paying to replay their titles clearly they have to understand replay value or value for money is what people want and choices and replayability is at the core of that imho.

Passing of time and Enviroment
No more large time jumps for a main character Who just so happens to suffer from narcolepsy and slips into a coma for years at a time between arcs probably due to being trapped in the same place seeing the same walls and caves for years and years no matter where he goes with no real world changes apparently in the land or city that the hero is based in when wakes up wearing same clothes as applies also to his companions and NPCs. So no more horrible "years go by" clichés like in DA2 please with a few sentences description of what took place in those years.

Arishok and Companions/Interaction
I loved the Arishok btw, I would gladly have replaced any party member with him. I want with my companions the ability to talk to them anytime like DAO where they could stop you at anytime and start a dialogue or go to them anytime and do the same not wait till there's a quest unlocked at (x) time during game play and at all other times they are nothing more than background noise.

If picked say an Answer A you don't have access to Answer B and vice versa yet all answers lead to the choices which define what you do next including fact Answer A or B could also lead to an [event] instead of waiting till Answer C before the event occurs, this progression ends with branching into different quests, situations, consequences plus as with DA2 in some cases reactions (watch a cinematic, or situation resolution happen). But unlike DA2 where you spam through investigate then just one actual choice which leads to an event or end of dialogue and beginning of situation, quest, consequence or majority of dialogue only leading to a reaction of events (some exceptions but not many I can recall) after dialogue...

I would prefer switched the majority leading to branching and the minority to reactions with an element of prioritisation akin to picking a route through dialogue which blocks offother routes and leads to different results including the feeling that any dialogue choice might lead to an event. Unlike what DA2 felt like which is not having any routes and only choice is last choice in the dialogue with only one chance of event based on that one choice after skipping through all investigates.

Specifically the main point was that there is no ME style investigate, you can't spam way through A, B and then decide on C (With C being the only one that incurs an event). Your already making choices the moment you pick the first option which excludes the ability to read all the other options in one playthrough making the end result new things to see in the following playthrough.

Now DA2 which did have some branching with some dialogue that led to different quests (which if I recall was few and far between for almost all quests bar a few) could be done every single playthrough. Which ends with losing replay value since done all the quests with few exceptions already first time around. Thats how DA2 felt to me with investigate > [all options] and then followed by reaction to your choice (watch a cinematic, situation resolution happen).

Clear examples a few times in game such as Fenris dialogue I remember speaking to him spamming through all investigate style options then picking something which + his romance, I then decided to cycle through investigate again options all answers previously seen and got back to selection bit where instead picked the - romance option. Now I'm not saying this was possible in all dialogue because I remember Isabella one where could not go back and answer differently because the choice itself ended the dialogue which is what I want to happen.

The difference is I don't want to know what's an investigate option to begin with, this allows me to prioritise what I want to ask by importance of what I want answered, end result is any of them may lead to an [event] and because I don't know when that will happen this makes me more involved with whats going on and more carefull putting a priority on whats important to me when speaking to my companions.

It's hard to explain exactly what it is I want and while isn't about tone aspect and there are far more complicated ideas and far better ones, I just don't want to be able to read A+B+C and D then make choice E which results in reaction. Instead I want is that any one of them might lead to the [event] which makes me the player think more about whats important to me and which things I ask relate to what I want to know most.. This way I personally have no regret about picking a route through dialogue yet know that because I took a 'route' by choice instead of reading everything first time around via (investigate style options with little to no consequences) which leads me to never read any of them again because there's nothing new within the dialogue except the non-investigate last choice.

As for the tone I thought was slightly flawed because right at start it's not locked in and takes time to build up over game before locks into personaility, one would assume required points being added up every time selected a tone and once hit [x] number of uses it locks in but in meantime how is it deciding you responses in combat as example? In theory it just isn't until that [x] number is reached which means for first part of game is no different to any other playthrough and instead only second half of game becomes different once locked in... I'm not 100% sure though as I don't know the exact mechanics of current system.

The other thing is in life I might be bad mood one day, sarcastic or mean but next minute or next hour or day might be cheerfull personality so unless the system allows switching personality at any time I don't feel like it is realistic. Being a sarcastic Hawke might be interesting but a person isn't defined by being one thing, they are many things dependant on topic and mood which changes constantly. In that respect I think locking in a tone is flawed in itself. When does it allow you to switch whats locked in I'm guessing takes again [x] amount of selection but should it allow for change between each dialogue or act or not at all once locked.  A persons personality can change in a heart beat so locking in at all isn't something I like unless it's {only} locked in between each dialogue.

Example just one event I could have reacted in different ways to it dependant on frame of mind from prior events and/or simply change of heart. I would like the game to not lock me into a stereotype at all or mindset and instead from event to event my outward expression of emotion or persona changes for example (since has to be through event to event as thats the only interaction where can show that expression and change even if mindset changed prior to the event only the event itself allows the player to interact and express what has changed).

As it stands right now your dominant personality locked in stereotype based of click [x] or [y] style responses enough times changes the attitude you have in such situations as battle dialogue and if locked into snarky/hissy Hawke even though in light hearted mood due to say previous event, you still end up being hissy and sarcastic in those battle style comments and future dialogues regardless of situation even when picking a light hearted response your still being sarcastic. I want the mood you was in last between event based dialogues to be the mood expressed through banter or events/combat until the next situation occurs in which you may be in a less positive mood and your response reflect that. From that point on until the next situation your in that mood and responses reflect it. From my understanding once your locked into snarky mood through clicking [x] certain amount of times all your non choiced/changed based dialogue is snarky regardless of mood your actually in. Imho mood needs to be reflected [between] situations and changes based on mood that situation puts you in where your only locked in between situations at most.

This shouldn't be hard to do as all tones are there already between situations for the locked in style already ingame the difference is triggering which tone/mood used between situations rather then a global locked in till next [x] amount of times pressed [y]. Each event may change the mood your in and it locks instead into that mood until the next event where by picking a different mood via responses it locks in that new mood until the next event. This would be more realistic to me and while not exactly true to life it's about as close as the game can get since dialogue or situations as it were are the only times you can express that your mood has changed.

Regarding being able to select a route through dialogue instead of everything in silver platter via investigate then one final dialogue which is the only one with consequences and leads to an event, I 'prefer' the not knowing which dialogue choices cause a reaction and event and the surprise and more importantly priority comes back to making your selections because of the fact anything could lead to an event and end that dialogue moving story forward. This is cause and effect making choices and consequences within the dialogue system itself which to me is far, far more enjoyable than clicking all investigates followed by one end dialogue actual choice.

Between each situation/event your mood is reflected in all dialogue aka combat tone and tone in current situation until the next event or situation where by if pick a majority of different tone responses your mood gets locked into the new mood and so on until the next event. If sarcastic mood that is reflected in all dialogue until the next event where by if your in better mood for example diplomatic mood via picking more diplomatic responses in that next event dialogue than sarcastic, your overall mood changes until the next event/situation upon your diplomatic until pick more sarcastic options in a following event which then switches to realise your in a sarcastic mood and that mood is locked in until the next event or situation.

The feeling towards individuals could also work alongside that where if selecting more bad mood towards NPC or companion dialogue choices then the system realises your not happy with that person and have a opinion or perception towards him or her. It stays that way until you pick more positive mood selection choices towards that NPC or companion in which case realises you have forgiven or changed your opinion of them which is reflected in following dialogues until answers get picked so many times in another direction mood wise which locks it into new mood towards that person and this again could be tracked event to event and changed between events if your overall responses change in direction of another mood towards them via dialogue choice emotions.

This would only require tracking two types of things, first is mood or attitude between situations/events and depending on majority of choices picked mood wise in that last event it locks in only until the next event where by if still more sarcastic than diplomatic then stays in sarcastic mode but if pick more diplomatic that next time around then switches to diplomatic mood until the next event or situation This would be a global tracked style where for all non-reoccuring/characters and NPCs used for tone.  This could be tracked ina global data which tracks event to event most selected tone and chanes based on that between events for a tone during those times when not speaking to a re-occuring character with it's own tone tracked as mentioned below.

The second thing would track is a simple number about how you recently responded to an NPC or companion either positive/negative or diplomatic/sarcastic responses towards their direct conversation part aka when talked direct to them or about them the most in last event. This stays that way until your choices change via majority selecting a different response type in the next event towards what that NPC or companion says. This tone is used for re-occuring characters that speak too and is different to the tone used and tracked about global general mood in thats used for dialogue with non-reoccuring characters or situations. This set of data itself could be tied into the character or NPC data via just an extra line or variable which records last events majority tone the player took towards this companion or NPC, it changes from event to event as your opinion fo them might change and picked different emotion towards any 'direct response or reactive' conversation between you and the specific NPC.

You then have something can track in system for both sets;.which then becomes how do you implement it in tone, well to me just means the actual tone itself already exists for each dialogue so it's just a case of switching tones dependant on the tally of those two sets of numbers since last event or last time seen that NPC or companion, whichever mood is still locked in for that person would give different tone to response when talking directly with them ~but the tracked other global tone between events would be used for all other situations aka combat speach or when talking to someone new who don't have a tracked mood towards since never responded to them before if get what I mean. Theres only so many re-occuring characters which would use that specific second tracked tone, the rest all the non re-occuring characters would use the global or general tone. Both should be tracking if changed between events/situations so that can be more accurate about mood your in when situations/events happen and how you feel about your companions through the game from event to event.

This would give different tone towards companions/reoccuring characters which could change between events as that person/character or companion has done or said something which changed your tone towards them between events. This would also allow another tone a more general tone between events towards non-reoccuring characters and would be the tone used for new people met or combat situations or just dialogue not involving a NPC or companion you already have a mood/opinion or tone towards plus this again changes from event to event allowing your mood to change between things happening in the world around you which is based off the most picked tone from last dialogue event up until the next event where something might happen and your mood changes.

Auto attack
Auto attack was a promised feature and one which was in the original game which people have been asking for and promised in the second in series which never made it into the game on consoles due to a Bioware error between them and master disc process (whoever they used if not done in-house) so a working autoattack option from the start even if the player chooses not to use it, is needed next time with no mistakes during mastering while missing the auto attack feature isn't game breaking for me it does reduce enthusiasm from a standpoint I would like the ability to play like I did in DAO if I so chose.

Customisation and Loot
I don't actually like the limitation of custumisation with DA2. It was a downside to the game for me not a positive. There was very little more annoying than loads of gear drops that cannot use on anyone and the problem isn't that the items were dropped, it was the fact all the freedom to use them (campanions appearance) was locked. I think I made only half dozen item changes in whole game. If anything it will go in the negative column when going through pros and cons of next in series for me to buy or not. Some people like it others do not, I happen to fall into the not catagory. If some people don't like that then at least an option it from settings, either an manual equip gear yourself option or an off option in which they are given default gears maybe a choice of 3-5 sets. But companion custimisation not just runes trinkets and weapons which there is no excuse not to have given the same gear sort of drops were in DA2 only you were blocked from using them as the only difference between DAO and DA2.

Story/Plot and Choices/Consequences
I want to feel special in the next title using the scale and scope and choices making a difference not just how it you say something, but more importantly what you say affecting changes in the world around you. I buy games for that feeling, not like the feeling simply a bystander of a main character like in DA2. Less soap opera more grand epic adventure for the next one please.

It's not just about the impact of those choices between two games with one having more impact than the other but also about how they were implemented. DA2 the choices were very much more bottlenecked and direction was by far a lot more forced in what got picked compared to DAO. I have given examples before about picking choices and being over-ridden by companions or NPCs or plain ignoring of your choice which happens a few times which again I have given examples of before. This was how DA2 was made and was intentional even though badly done at same time, the whole game is about being powerless, inevitability or swimming against the tide imho and this came through very much through in the aspect of choices being ignored even when given the opportunity to say no to something then happens anyways or your choice is over-ridden.

Some examples of this are flemmeths quest at start, some of merrills quests, entering the city, sister patrice moments and especially around the the end of game. It's bad design to give you choice of saying no to something or refuse to do something, say will kill or stop someone or even choose a side or option given to you then it is literally taken away from you specifically after making the choice offered to you already through dialogue. Illusion of choice in DA2 became less about using imagination and more about making excuses for why things happened with bottlenecking playing biggest part which in itself became a flaw because of how badly was implemented.

While both games allowed choices the second title was designed to give the feeling of powerlessness akin to swept up in events unfolding, the biggest difference is how badly it was done in DA2 compared to DAO as it is obvious for those who don't spend all their time making up excuses for why when you get given the option it is snatched away from you either by NPCs or by plain poor design.

This has no effect on some people who like playing DA2 irrespective of that aspect but the difference between DAO choices and DA2 is simply quality, DAO was higher quality than DA2 in this regard; it was done better. This is my personal opinion and people are free to feel different but I have no intention of being baited or arguing with anyone about it which if they disagree then I hereby already state I agree to disagree regardless of if you also agree to that.

Immersion and Cause/Effect
You could literally sit in the gallows offering up newborn babies to blood magic demon gods and no-one would care in DA2 (if Bioware let you) not only would they not care they would reward you with bigger house and a grand title. Alternatively you could go around handing out love and peace and occasionally pull your pants down run around flapping your arms while clucking like a chicken and the citizens of Kirkwall will give you a bigger house and a grand title which I don't like about DA2. It was just a little too forced one direction if you know what I mean. From the choices you make, the routes you take, who you become and what you affect all are big things to me as is exploration. Freedom and choices even if in act form that lead to visible clear difference in how each act ends with a possible cumulative effect on the story is something I really want in games.

Enviroment and Exploration
World exploration or at least continent not one city and a few trips to one map on a mountain and beach. For example a combination of every city within the game was scale and size of Kirkwall but was many cities in the continent that would be bliss from a gaming perspective and with Bluray this isn't out of the question (if time wasn't a factor coming from EA), I'd rather wait 5-6 years for that and fill the time with DLC than short games without imho Technically quite possible storage wise DA2 fits on a Bluray disc like a drop in the ocean and a lot of games use multiple discs so that too is an option. But DO NOT re-use entire maps for the love of god.

Nudity and Sex
The sex scenes are like 2 people having fits in DA2 and the lack of any nudity in a 18+ rated game seems odd as you go about ripping the heads of ogres and such 24/7 covered in blood yet they blocked nudity to a very large degree.

Music
The end music song "Florence And The Machine - I'm not calling you a liar". Really was a great touch given the topic of the story based on Varrics story being told of events and him being a story teller with aspects possibly lying about. Combining a great song appropriatly is good and imho using songs with lyrics rather than just instrumental or ethereal based music is fine with me sometimes even better.

Graphics and CC plus Scenery
The graphics in general I didn't mind so much in one specific regard and that was the some aspects of the scenery which seemed nicer, the water effect and sky. But the rest... Well, not great. (When I say scenery I do not mean the caves repeating or walls everywhere or even the colour palette what I mean specifically the beach area and mountain, everything else was meh at best including re-use of maps taken to extremes). I liked the improved CC graphics too with exception of hair and flesh. Player creation prior to story starting including before introduction (longer hair choices for males and less of a plastic look for hair in general as they all look like spent 5 years working in chip shop sort of greasy/plastic and all charcters made of rubber due to flesh tone and smoothness was not good). Also see last section of this review (additional thoughts section) to see what I think needs to be done as far as making the world a "living world". I did not like the new look of the elves at all, the same applies to the darkspawn however the qunari were ok to me I liked them with one exception I think they need toning down colour wise.

Ending
I don't want to play a game and find out I get slapped in the face, that nothing I did up to that point had no effect both regards to a certain party member and a dialogue choice at the end where one conversation direction choice gets blocked regardless and then forced to kill both sides if pick either two remaining options regardless. An ending that felt like an ending with room to follow up with DLC, not like a "to be concluded..." I felt was from DA2 with possible DLC to fill in time gaps removed from original game. I want choices in both DAO and DA2 to be shown to have a large enough effect in DA3. Not just one or the other and not none at all.

Size/Scale and Quests
Each act (if use acts again) in game should not get smaller and smaller as progress imho in DA2 act 2 was 2/3 size act 1 and act 3 half size act 2 this put a large dampner on the game for me espcially given the nature of alot of quests being fetch type that don't even require the fetch part since start when find loot then hand in, this feels cheap to me and I would like them to be around equal size each time because that way I don't wish to be able to measure my overall play time in the sense "Ok finished Act 2 now only 1-2 hour of gameplay left".

Development and DLC
No cutting out parts of the game (story/companion wise) and selling it back to us as DLC (Sebastion), I would have rather you left him in game and sold us Black Emporium as DLC. I hope there are some massive DLC's coming out because we are technically missing 7 years of the promised decade long game they advertised it as. Take all the time needed before releasing the next one. Extend the development cycle when needed. Other developers do it, this isn't a new concept and is something that is possible because others do it why can't you, obviously that way would have much less bugs and glitches.

DA2 is not the same style, its not even the same engine, idiology, direction or even plot structure. Throwing in a simular title, couple cameos and codex entries does not make it the same tbh. Bit like give someone some jelly beans they hand you a coin (you like the coin) next time you hand them some jelly beans expecting another coin due to fact they tell you will get another coin but will be of different denomination instead they hand you a baloon with coin painted on it (you don't fall for the trick because it's obvious) and you don't like the baloon.  Then people on BSN (some of them) end up turning around and have a go at you for saying you didn't want a baloon afterwards.

From my standpoint I bought Kotor and it was a great game which inspired me to fork out for Kotor 2 and again (bugs aside) was still great game this left me wanting more in the series which has yet to be done, single player not MMO. I also thought well if Bioware can make this game good I'll try some more and followed it up with BG again loved, got me interested and bought the follow up which still loved and keenly awaited next title in series again which so far hasn't been been developed.

My friend then sent me a copy of ME1, I thought was amazing game and replayed many times like the rest, it peaked my interest in any follow up title and I bought ME2 for me and my friend and while not as good imho as the first one I still enjoyed enough to await number 3 to come out but due to some aspects within it such as tedious planet scanning which more importantly that it replaced exploration, more shooter / less RPG of number 2 plus removal of exploration replaced with ****ty planet scanning made me keep eye on future developments to see if they "streamline" it to death or not. It didn't put my off buying the next one though but had to keep my fingers crossed which still are.

My friend then bought me DAO and I thought was best game yet which immediatly made me hope the next one would be as amazing, so my friend bought me copy and I bought her one (odd way around I know but she wanted SE and I didn't; I had job she didnt so I paid the most for her and she gave me normal copy to make up for it). After playing that I have lost almost all interest in future titles in that series unlike every other franchise Bioware has ever made this one has actually put me off spending my money on the next title. Thats the effect of DA2 so while people can claimed "ooh was best thing since sliced bread, love new direction hope next one stays that way" the knock on effect for most is for first time since buying any Bioware title it has made me lose interest in one of their franchises.

While I see Bioware fall from grace with DA2 I see others rise up Skyrim, DuesEx, Diablo (still keeping by far enough to still be Diablo with the exception of logging in to play which I don't mind) also TW2. All these peaked my interest while Biowares DA series has crumbled imho into a streamlined, flashy over the top instant gratification series. Hope they change direction which I'm sure won't happen but DA2 lost my interest in future DA products, thats the real life cuase/effect of the choices/consequence of games direction changing. When they produce a game which imho is of worse quality and enjoyment than a mediocre or average game like Nier or FF13 (personal opinion, if don't like deal with it and move on) then it's time to look elsewhere. Was first time playing their titles that I stopped playing half way through for ages and just played decade old not great titles that I have completed a million times already because they were more fun to me than DA2.

So I left my feedback and hope things change but I don't think they will not enough to peak my interest since they have already stated keeping heading in same direction as DA2 with the whole "broaden the audience" "appeal to everyone" "attract non RPG players via simplification" etc.

I wanted a truly deep, vast amount of loot and customisation, many locations all looking unique that enabled exploration, a world that seemed alive not lifeless like was, no childish spam attack combat against spam waves plus choices that matter and not truly tacky bottlenecking so obvious that a 3 y/o could tell the difference between making a choice and then being kicked in the nuts after saying no I don't want to carry your amulet/pendant when you are given the option of saying no then sister and his/her mommy saying will do it or no I don't want to enter Kirkwall which gave you the option of saying go somewhere else then again his mommy and sister say they going in, no I don't want to side with one group or the other when there was option to not pick sides and the sentence got repeated followed by your choice removed from dialog and no I wouldn't sit around for decade not interested in mothers relationship enough to ask a single question about mystery person and no I don't want to let sister patrice walk out building when I picked kill/stop her and she still did it.. Amongst a million other things which slap you in the face.

Its going to take a drastic change in many areas of gameplay to peak my interest again which let's be honest won't happen due to they want this new audience at it seems to me regardless of cost of the previous one. The one thing I will give Bioware credit they do seem to be listening but I don't see how they will pull off this fix successfully in the end now that they have two types of game one who liked deeper with less hand held titles such as DAO and the new direction of simple enough for little kiddies with no experience of games especially any RPGs who will need their hand held telling them what save game means or what an inventory is.

I do wish them luck with trying to resolve that but the last thing I am going to be doing is holding my breath. They have created a chasm between two titles within the same franchise with different directions and idiologies and I don't see them finding a perfect solution instead just a mix match which will due to being mash up of two different types of game approaches will be a diluted mess of random directions. This in itself will make the final product stopped from ever being a masterpeice or amazing. I think next title will be average as they try to appeal to audiences of DAO plus DA2 and still a third one, the 'need hands held' generation of new players. So expect more simplification, more streamlining and less features imho.

This mini rant bit is result of lack of quality in a rushed DA2 and change in direction and idiologies from DAO to DA2 (Can quote Brent's words on direction he wanted to go, which differes from Mikes if think the idiology is same which in reality wasn't and isn't).

Saying that I still have a lot of respect for Bioware and staff especially ability to listen to people even if don't make changes based on what people ask for, and nothing against Mike he just has different opinion than me thats all which is quite fair and no reason why shouldn't have different opinions. I just don't like the direction and it lost my interest purely as a result of product they released following up from one loved (wasn't just because wanted DAO2 which people might claim, I also played it pretending wasn't a follow up to DAO and still had so many flaws and things did not like as a standalone game that still didn't like it). DAO wasn't perfect but when put it all together created a masterpeice imho, DA2 was full of bad aspects and when put together it was only at most average to me personally. They are trying to put things right with Legacy and from what I understand was a step in right direction and proved listened to people but due to admitting they sticking with streamlining (some people don't like the word but it merely means simplification or removal of things people claim is useless regardless of in fact if is used and liked) I don't think the end result will be the right balance. Time will tell.

Loot
All item loot regardless of junk or not needs descriptions whether funny or realistic/lore based or story which was removed or just plain too lazy to put in in DA2. I have no problem having a junk option but I would like to be the one who decides what is junk or not personally.

Story and Plot
Going to quote someone for second because described an aspect perfectly since did it so well.

iakus wrote...

DA2 did well in allowing you to shape Hawke.  You could really decide what kind of "Champion" you end up being.  There's plenty of rpgs out there that can't even do this well. However, what the game really didn't do was allow this Champion to have any real effect on Kirkwall.  Events were pretty much locked in, all you could do was react to them.  If, somehow during the endgame, the player's chocies had some sort of dramatic effect, there'd be much less disappointment.

Glitches/Bugs, Quests
For pity's sake no more making quests that you cannot complete... This was a problem in DAO and also in DA2 and Awakening if you got the Anders glitch like I did in it which was never fixed.

Combat
Combat mechanics in DA2 I didn't mind so much, with exception of waves of instant spawning mobs and the blood felt like was painted on in very specific way in which the locations of the blood always tended to be same spots. Monsters exploded like lego parts was not really a turn on for me. I liked the faster pace with less shuffle.

Voiced Dialogue VO
Voiced conversations I liked for the main characters (keyword = if ~ play as third person RP like Mass Effect) which isn't an issue over time, space or money as all NPCs in DAO you interacted with for quests were voiced so adding a few more voices to a main character is a small thing and cannot be in reality used to defend the removal of other aspects. But ideally a selection of vioces or scales pitch and tone etc with the ability to pick races again in next title please, there is no reason why the you cant use a single voice (including sliders for tone and pitch) for male human/elf/dwarf if have time restraints else seporate VO would be epic but not essential.

Immersion and Family
Actually having a family and also a home was nice touch but should of changed over time and would be nice if you could decide how changed maybe spoil of war type decorations. But they (family) needed a bigger starter whether from Carver seeing him in Ostagar or starting in Lothering so get a feel for them prior to them being thrown into events where lose one right at start but have no emotion towards it because never knew them from the start so why should I care about them. Having an effect on if another one dies (trying not to spoiler) would be a plus imho. Feeling powerless might be a turn on for some both in games and real life but this isn't the case for me.

Imports
Imports making a larger impact on the new game and working from the start which means no game flag point corruption.

Dialogue and Interaction also Immersion
The conversation wheel was fine I have no problem using this method though would be nice if font and styling used matched a fantasy based game like DA and the romance option icon.. Well I'm in two minds about romances in DA2 neither in the dislike or like catagory tbh just plain was 'ok I guess if push comes to shove'. The dialogue wheel could be reshaped and shrank/moved so that you could use full lines of exact phrase would pick instead of guess work use paraphrasing in DA2 (if play as first person RP like DAO). Like I have mentioned many times on these forums you need to drop this timed player interaction only approach of quests/events and go back to player/companion interaction like DAO where you could stop and chat and actually have a dialogue with companions at any time you wished and not some friendship exile where they won't talk to you until (x) time in story.

Combat Mechanics
The 'reinforcement' system should not be used unless your being pitted against an army or vast battlefield, including 'some' boss based battles. The 'wave' or reinforcement system should not be used for every single fight ever in games. It's unrealistic and tedious. The teleporting should be left for mages and spirits and even then through animations that can attribute to casting a teleportation spell else just use the doors and such like supposed to when entering or exiting a place. There is no real tactical use for implementing the kind of waves in DA2. When applying tactics the enemies must be using clear shown tactics in how came into the battle such as stage by stage type evolution of reinforcement (archers, warriors, casters etc minor and major mobs timed and more exaclty location based different approaches for units and mobs) and not willy nilly drop and spank method using completley random placement and units. Most battles should have set placements (static mobs) amount of units while the major battles (story and location based) should apply reinforcements method only (even then using real tactics to approach not just dropping in random units at random places). That is what I would like to see.

Combat Difficulty
If it comes down to applying difficulty to the combat you improve the tactics using much better impletmentation of reinforcements AND more to my liking is the DAO approach of to make progression harder through the game via varying strength between different mob types and not auto leveling of all mobs to match your own level regardless of unit type. Not a wave system on every fight to make up for lack of difficulty. Bring in new unit types as progress, stronger specific units as the game progresses while keeping the older models and units weak as you out level them, more cannon fodder to back up the new stronger ones as progress in battles as opposed to linking the weak random bandits to your maximum level hero's.

Imports and Sequels
Importing from the choices in (BOTH) DAO and DA2, not just DA2 or none.

Isometric Camera
The isometric camera people really want, I have no strong opinion about this but see no harm in making sure has it in the next title. It is a big feature for a lot of people apparently so should deffinately try to get it in if can.

Comparrison DAO and DA2
DAO was designed for a first person RP player at it's most, basic level (the developers have stated this themselves so I put it as 'fact' in relation to this bit), DA2 was a third person style RP game much akin to ME series. My problem is that the first game brought me into the DA franchise and instead of bringing out a sequel which stuck to this core, basic principle they switched it and I have listed a dozen or more reasons how so in other threads that would if put together be many pages long. They decided a sequel was the best time to try a complete new method for story telling with DA2, the method of 'framed narrative' ~a more personal story with choices more based around relationships than plot/endgame. Again this went against at a basic fundamental level the concepts changing from one set of choices/consequence system to another between it's predecessor and the sequel.

For me DA was my thing (type of title/series) is was a game developed with the same mindset as myself as a first person style RPer, a special 'original' title which I had hoped would carry on and create a series based on those core idiologies which made up the first. In reality they decided the franchise was a test ground for complete re-hash and new ideas which broke the bond I had with the series due to points 1 + 2 mentioned above... Which I would have had no problem with at all if was done in a new title that was not a sequel to the previous one I liked or more precisely if was done with another IP or new franchise or knew that they would return to the first person style RP type at some stage in DA franchise which catered to this audience much like DAO had. It would of suited for example the ME series better given the ME series was already a third person style RP game which would have in turn left me having a franchise that was first person RP style which these days if few and far between.

**The use of actual gameplay mechanics of which enforces one style of play more than the other and was done by purpose by the developers promoting one form of narrative (method of telling a story) over another between first and third. That perception is forged through design choices and gameplay mechanics. While not impossible to overcome through vivid imagination it becomes much harder to do so with VO and paraphrasing. Gameplay mechanic changes such as adding a VO or silent, paraphrasing or full text descriptive lines and such things like having a CC or not plus other such things like a game lacking a choice system or having one and customisation too all have an effect on third or first persona RPing from the perspective of immersion which leads consequently to enjoyment.**

Additional thoughts on future of such titles as Dragon Age regarding Immersion @ Bioware

As stated on these forums and in interviews, you guys have stated you wanted a more cinematic experience. Surely that goes hand in hand with visual aspects such as weather system, wind and day/night cycles. All of these things increase the cinematic feel of a game. Ditto with NPC reactions to your presence and actions. I can understand that different developers start at different point with different goals but they should look at each other for things they could do better.

Those things I mentioned would make your titles better especially in a cinematic way imho. Other companies are seeing what it is you have done yourselves and that is why I gave the example of Rockstar, Bethesda, Eidos and Cryptic all implementing and improving, trying to do such things as choices/conseqeunces cause/effect systems because you did so well developing them to create a demand for such things on a bigger scale.

You can't sit back and not take note of what others are doing just because you scored a point with that system to be honest. Your stories aren't the greatest thing in gaming but the combination of your choices systems that is used to tell the story is what made you special and not the story on its own imho. Now they are trying to create such systems themselves you cannot afford to surely count on just that gameplay mechanic to keep you ahead of the rest. I am of the firm belief it is far more advisable to watch what the others are upto and try to implement the 'best' features and add it onto you own titles which might on top of that have its own special features. Tweaking the engine over time to always improve it add more stunning visuals and realism which immerses the player in that world of which you create. How can anyone seriously argue that such immersion is a bad thing for a game?

I cannot agree to any actual reason why a developer would purposefully decide against trying to build such immersion in the worlds you have created with such features that have a great affect on the aforementioned immersion. If you truly held BG as the benchmark of RPG quality then why did you move to 3D or continue to evolve the engines and visual quality of your games from back then. The same reason you evolved your games from then is the same reason you should try your best to evolve such features as the ones I have mentioned.

Bioware really has no more of a trump card than just that. Other games do specific things such as good group party combat and deep emotionally involving background and storyline for the companions in the game with or without the system I just mentioned. The fact other titles are beginning to try to emulate and incorporate such systems is a good thing and Bioware pushed it that way to a large degree with their titles. But as time progresses and the other developers get better at adding such systems Bioware can't afford to sit on it's bum and rely just on that.

Biowares stories rely on that system to tell their stories and that imho is what makes them special, the story alone or combat alone is by far not what makes their games a cut above the rest.

Just imagine how much more you could of enjoyed the game (if) a gentle breeze could blow through the grass and you see it's affects, a wind blowing through your hair and it reacting accordingly, NPCs that react not only to your presence and actions but also the weather, the weather system itself ever changing and in a immersive realistic way, NPCs that go about their lives whether you interacted with them or not and even a day and night system that changes with world and people within it acting accordingly.

The Witcher 2 titles has such things and Bioware should look at them and see if they can add any of those aspects to their own titles. How much better would the experience and immersion of been for you if they had that in DAO or DA2? It is not about whether you gleamed enough immersion from a game without it to enjoy the game. Always try to make their games better and better should be the approach and such systems do add to enjoyment and immersion in the worlds of which either company create.

My point and I feel it is a valid one is when a rival company within the same genre as Bioware (RPGs) comes up with a new mechanic or system, Bioware should examine and try to incorporate the best of those things into their games not just dismiss just because you have other things that make your games good, you should add such things to your already existing systems to make your games even better both in realism and immersion. Add such things to what may already be a great game taking it to a new level.

Examples of such features.





Forums
And lastly a new rule implemented on these forums that if anyone argues with me they get forum ban please (this last point to be taken with pinch of salt).

**Editied to add more information and my opinions**

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 14 août 2011 - 08:17 .

[Monsteroids]

My biggest beef with DA 2 was the Presentation style:

I'd like more meaningful romance bits. The skin in video games tends to suck. Mass Effect nailed romance scenes real well, y'know, without the Uncanny Valley aspects.

In DA 2 I'd have liked to see the Kirkwall environment change with Hawke's choices, not just Hawke's personality growth. I'd like a more extroverted game, with lots of noise, hustle and bustle in Kirkwall and with REAL secrets to be found. I want Kirkwall to move a lot under my feet. I wanna feel a pulse. Such a local setting needs a constant pulse. Not just some guys spouting one liners from afar and thugs jumping me every five minutes.

I'd also like the world layouts to be less disconnected and more varied. I disliked the day/night menu. Why not have the world go from day to night naturally with/or a separate timeskip option? Like Zelda or something?

I wanted, most of all, to see my companions more often and have more conversations and quests with them. I really liked them. I felt more important to them than to Kirkwall.


Now, the story itself was good and quite bold, but gameplay segregation got on my nerves a little and Act 3 suffered massive restrictions on Hawke's choices and the plot decay was a result of that. I'd rather not have had to submit to the ending's dichotomous situation. It was rather jarring to have to pick a side when I set my character up to avoid much of the conflict.

The ending was both silly and hammy and yet not important or grand enough. I think this is because of the menial feel of many of the quests/jobs. It's a good compelling plot, but so boring to act out. It's boring. It gets so disappointing to jobs for these overly abrasive idiots to help them sling more crap at each other. It's vague, unfocused, and kind of insulting.

It had such a poor balance of dramatic tension compared to previous Acts. It became a farce.

Act 1 made sense due to the humble beginnings, family pressures, and Varric's charming narration and company.

Act 2 had a great balance of dramatic tension with the conflicts of Honor, Order and Freedom alongside certain... family issues. I knew I was gonna fight that Arishok and everything that led up to it was excellent. Thing is, the Arishok had a real interest in Hawke and was just a cool guy all 'round.

The lack of any actual epilogue also hit a pet peeve of mine. No closure? So what happened to that darn city after all my work? Anything? Where did all my friends go off to?

Well, those are my problems. Still, I love this game and don't find it irredeemable at all. I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

Modifié par Monsteroids, 23 mars 2011 - 03:36 .

[DARK_CENROS]

After end the game main character appears in the main house without options to end the second unsolved missions... also there is nothing more to do ( just sit and wait for new add ons on Playstation Store ' .

Would be nice that at the end the player have the option to play a new game keeping almost all the items owned on the treasure box or almost the collected experience points to replace on the main character. I hope that this can be fix it with some update because is a little bit shocking start the game again just to win the missing trophies and then when that is completed just keep sit to wait for new add ons .

Modifié par DARK_CENROS, 25 mars 2011 - 03:09 .

[BluGirl1968]

Hello,

I would just like to say the first kiss from Anders is awesome in the friend-lover pair. That is all. 

Okay that is not all.

Also, Fenris moves like a ballet dancer. Very sexy.

Varric is a teddy bear and has the best and funniest lines.

I have thoughts about the sechsy stuff again but I am not sure if it is opinion or not yet. I must ponder this while I am attempting to court Sebastian. He has the best accent.

I do love the characters and clearly I have emotionally invested myself in finding out about them.

You know, I wonder how many people making spurious logical arguments work for other competing game companies?

I figure you have heard enough of the interwebs bitter vitrol and could hear good stuffs too. Not all anonymous posters feel the need to turn into turdburglers on escape from blame. 

[Vicious]

Hey guys, Chiming in to say I loved the voiced protagonist more than ever, but I preferred DA:O's slower and more 'realistic' combat. However the Mage staff moves are worth keeping. Well done!

Also, Waves don't work and make the combat tedious. Think you're done with the battle and 'ugh another wave.'

For DA3, please make 'what you see is what you get' one of my favorite moments in DA:O was in the deep roads crossing the long bridge and battling Darkspawn on the way, eying that Ogre that was waiting for me on the other side.

DA2 has nothing that compares to that. Waves just appear out of nowhere. It's really quite silly.

[PillingPower]

I'll repeat that I really enjoyed the game. The main thing lacking was that of emotional attachment to your character, companions and love interest.
Hawke realy needed a back story fleshing out - preparation for the battle of Ostagar, then fighting through and escaping the disaster, would have established his personality and formed a bond between him and his family in advance of fleeing from Lothering.
Regarding companions and love interest - it just needs more conversation and more depth.

[koruador]

I wanted to finish the game before I posted anything positive or negative. Simply put I really enjoyed it. I liked the first one too but the story in this one really caught me. I'll be playing through it again to try it as a mage and take different options and romance arcs. Great game in my opinion even though the end boss wasn't that inspiring. Hope those who hated it can get satisfaction out of the next one. Thank Bioware, I had a good time with your game. Hope to see some of this in SWTOR.

[alexmasterson123]

'11. Inability to stay true to your own lore. Mages can't teleport yet there are mages teleporting in DA2'

Indeed. Though the disconnect between gameplay and lore was pretty large anyway, and at least they didn't do so in cutscenes so it was just a WoW style mechanic to jazz up fights.

[cindercatz]

OK, totally agree with everything in the OP's list, except I like the skill trees (interface). X-Box player here.

I would add accessibility and major improvement to combat.

To lift from another of my posts all about combat:
I don't find the combat fun... at all. I'm playing 2 handed warrior, only a mild improvement over the demo rogue I played. It's just buff, tappity tap tap, special, tappity tap tap. repeat. CCCs are just another level of tedium. I like my companions using their abilities, and I like to use mine. So sure I set up tactics for CCCs, but the less I have to concern myself with preset ability chains I have to wait for while slogging through repetitive, ineffective button spamming, the better. I want every character to be able to function on their own and through the team tactics I set up, not to be shoehorned into x preset arcadey game command, just because random bad guy y has insta-superbaddie health or is random immune to element z. And I don't want to be pausing all the time. The only times I ever paused in origins were to rez or cast some spell or ability that was just perfect for a situation but wasn't something I had room to set up in the AI tactics, oh, and to switch free move/weapon or craft potions/runes. Otherwise, I played real time, and I don't want CCCs taking that away from me.

One thing I loved about Origins that nobody's mentioning are the battlefield tactics. Enemies would have defensive positions and distinct troop types working in cohesion throughout a fight. You'd need to prioritize that mage or archers, commander, whatever, and you'd have to carve your way across a cliff, over a bridge, just across a large distance, taking their high ground, while taking fire and being attacked on all sides and having to adapt along the way to keep everybody alive and coordinated. You could switch weapons, so you could fire away from your own defensive position as the enemy advanced and then meet them head on in melee as the lines closed. Your healer needed to be able to keep up or you needed lots of potions failing that, and potions were limited until you had the cash and the available ingredient suppliers. Battlefield tactics and management. And then those lovely finishers, that little rush of endorphines seeing my warden, even my AW mage warden, launch into lethal, smoothly animated flourishes. There is none of that in DA2, just button spamming and arcadey play mechanic gimmick CCCs, and small, flat monotonous enemy spawn zones, and random frustratingly high HP totals. Fast but choppy animations and fountains of cheap and unsatisfactory blood splurt. That's why it's not fun for me.

I don't want BioWare to forget what made origins tactics so fun and successful, all the little stuff.
I do like the closing moves. I would also replace the standing there out of range animations with running melee attacks.
Just to be clear, auto-attack must be an option on console.

Accessibility: I want item descriptions, quick jumps to codex and any spot category closing back. It's needlessly tedius to navigate the menu now.

Character accessibility: If I can't get into conversations whenever I feel like it, why not turn the smalltalk moments throughout the various areas into cinematic walk and talk scenes where I can jump in and interact in these lighter moments if I like. How about group convos any time you enter a new area or an area with a new quest?

Modifié par cindercatz, 23 mars 2011 - 09:25 .

[Remmirath]

Most of my problems had to do with combat.

- - -

System/Display: I'm not sure if it actually changed between games or not, but it was certainly harder to figure out in DA II. I'd like to be able to look and see, for example, my character has an attack bonus of 100 and this other character has 95, so my character is slightly better - it was confusing to see my character has an attack bonus of 940 and this other character has 1660 and that apparently means my character will hit 100% of the time and the other character will hit... 99% of the time. 
When the numbers get that huge, it's harder to feel as though they have any real meaning as well, at least to me. The way it was before seemed fine - I'm curious why it changed.

Waves: Waves are interesting every now and again. They were interesting in the final combat, for instance; I liked them there. When every fight has them, though, it starts to be more annoying than anything else. I think that would be better saved for circumstances that warrant it - if they logically would be calling in reinforcements, for instance.

Excessive HP: It seems as though some of the tougher creatures must have upwards of 50000 hit points, and at any rate it starts to feel like slogging through a fight if the hardest part of it is just holding out while you wear the enemy down slowly. The fights I liked the best were the ones where the enemy wasn't all that tough if you could get through to them, but was quite dangerous.
I actually ended up dropping the difficulty level on several fights just because they were taking so long, and I knew if I just kept at it at the current rate I'd win - in half an hour or so.

No Tactical Camera: I don't always use the tactical camera in combat anyhow, honestly - but in some fights, particularly against large creatures such as dragons, it's very nice to be able to zoom out and see where all the characters are on the battlefield. I missed it more than I was expecting to, honestly.

Hold Command: Every time I told the NPCs to hold, they shuffled forwards to keep the same distance from my character and then kept charging into battle anyhow. That doesn't make it very useful. It was nice that they attacked things that came near them - there were a few times in Origins that I noticed they would just stand there like blocks and die if they were on hold -  but it doesn't do much good tactically if they don't stand their ground.

Friendly Fire: I love friendly fire. Nightmare, however, was too aggravating because of some of the other complaints mentioned above (as in, combat took what seemed like forever). In my opinion, it should only be off on easy... but if it's at least there on Hard as well, that would be enough for me.

Area Attacks: On that note, while I suppose it did help the balance that every class ended up with area attacks, it felt very odd in some cases to me. Two-handed warriors having some attacks that target areas makes sense to me, but it felt odd to me that normal attacks did. Shield bashing large groups of people just doesn't seem to work to me. What I think would work better would be if warriors and rogues were basically good at dealing a lot of damage to a single target, and mages were good at dealing less damage to a spread out number of people - or something like that.

Bows and Such: There were many times that I wished anyone could still pick up and attempt to use a bow. The lock-out of weapons from certain classes bothered me in general, but it seemed particularly odd to me that a warrior wouldn't even know how to use a bow. There were quite a few fights where it would've been useful to be able to have everyone switch between melee and ranged.

NPC-Only Talents: Not sure how better to describe this. Mages teleporting behind you, that thing the Templars and some others do where they stun you, and so forth - it makes sense if the strange creatures you fight do all sorts of things that your party can't do, but if the enemy mages can teleport around I'd think the mages in my party would be able to as well. (In case it's not clear, I think the best thing to do there is not have the enemy mages teleport around.) 

And then my other complaints...

Less Dialogue: The NPCs that you only said a few lines to while giving them items seemed very odd and out of place to me - particularly that you had to find the item and then find the character, which doesn't make much sense to me. It makes a lot more sense if they ask you for it first, to me.
The NPCs (or companions, or whatever you wish to call them) had nice conversations, but it felt as though there weren't very many of them. I didn't actually keep count, so there could have been just as many as in Origins for all I knew, but it felt like less. I'm trying to think why exactly. I think that, even if you actually don't have anything new to talk about, it feels more like you can talk to the NPC if you even have the option of asking them various things you've already asked and saying farewell then if they just say something to the effect of 'we should move on' when you click on them. 
It was better than Awakening, though (the clicking on objects things really got on my nerves. I tend to not find things like that unless I walk around with tab held constantly).

Dialogue Wheel/Voiced PC: Actually didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, I'll give it that - it was much improved from my last experience with it, which was Mass Effect. However, the paraphrasing still annoyed me - there were only a few instances where the character said something that I thought was completely different than it, but it doesn't really feel to me that you're picking what to say if you don't actually know what you're going to say.
I do feel that having the PC voice has a significant negative impact on replay value, at least if you want your character to be very different each time you play (as I do). I also think that voice is almost important to the character overall as appearance is, and so I'd rather see no voice than only one option for voice.

NPC Armour: It was actually fairly frustrating to always have to just get rid of all but the one suit of armour my character was using, even if whatever it was I was selling off would've been better for one of the NPCs than what their own armour was currently giving them. It was also somewhat irritating to me how it levelled up automatically along with them, but still looked exactly the same (and in some cases, exactly as flimsy). 

Re-Used Maps: Honestly, I'm not wonderfully perceptive or terribly picky, and I didn't notice it for the most part - but at least erase the parts you can't go into that time from the map, please. I lost count of how many times I stumbled up against a wall because the map said the corridor went on but it didn't. (Yes, I have basically no sense of direction. I use the map so as not to get lost.) 
I will say that the areas that there were all looked quite nice, but it would've been nice to have at least a few more different ones.

Codex: It's not so much the codex that is a problem to me, it's that there's so much that goes in there that it's somewhat overwhelming to sit there and sift through it. I think that's because it somewhat takes you out of the game - your character obviously isn't just sitting there reading a file on the person they just met. I'd rather see most of that information appear in other ways, such as through talking to people or hearing rumours in the street or such. It is nice that the information is there, though, and I'd rather have it through the codex than not at all.
I much preferred the weapon and item descriptions being in the item, as well - and I miss them all having descriptions. Some of them were very interesting, and some of them funny, but I enjoyed reading them all. It doesn't feel quite the same to have a weapon with an interesting name but not be able to read something about how it came by that name.

Record Sheet: Kill tracking, et cetera. Sure, it's not terribly important - but I miss it, so I figured I'd point it out. I like to see who exactly killed a particular enemy, who in the party is doing the most kills, and things like that.

Intro: I really didn't like the 'play as default' part. It just felt very odd and un-necessary to me - I think it would've been better to make your character right off the bat, but still keep the exaggerated part to serve as a tutorial/introduction/proof that Varric is lying. I knew from reading the forums that you could in fact create your own character, but if I hadn't known that it would've worried me.

Elves/Sudden Changes: No, this isn't saying I hate elves. I like elves, in general (though obviously not all elves). The style change for them was just very strange to me, particularly since in game everyone still acts as though they're attractive to humans - but it just doesn't seem like the would be. Maybe people in Thedas just don't agree with me at all there, but it made it hard to believe. Fenris and Merrill at least did look much better than most of the random elves you run into, but they still looked a bit odd (not saying anything else against them - I liked them both as characters). I thought the Qunari changes might bother me as well, but they actually didn't when I was playing the game - but the elves stuck out.

- - -

That was pretty long, I realise, and it might look as though I didn't enjoy the game from that - which isn't really true. I did, just not as much as I could've. I did like the story, the NPCs (I actually liked all of the NPC companions to some extent), and thought the graphics were in fact significantly improved - but those things aren't criticisms, so I didn't mention 'em much.

Hopefully that was reasonably coherent. I'm not sure any more if it was.

[cindercatz]

Two last things.
Replayability: I feel playing the game that on the general question of the game, all the mage/ templar stuff, Hawke would really only go one way, considering his family and that history throughout his/her life. If I do anything else with my Hawke contrary to that, I'm out of character and immersion is no more. This hurts replayability, because there's nothing in the formative part of the game, no effective diverse characterisation to justify my making other decisions in later playthroughs. There's no reason a voiced protagonist can't accommodate multiple origin stories. Four player character voice actors could cover both genders of three or four races, and if the budget isn't there, the two actors we expect for gender variation could easily cover two races speaking in the same tone and/or multiple origins of the same race. I want to carry six stories out through the life of the series because Origins made it worth my while to do so. DA2 makes it difficult to even play through a second story, because it's going to be so very much like the first.

Romance/Nudity:
Our society needs positive portrayals of sexuality and nudity. You have a franchise, seems a company policy, really, that's right out there on the vangard of promoting positive sexual attitudes, then you seem to act like you're more puritan than is otherwise apparent, scared of Fox News, whatever. For art's sake, for games to really grow up, you have to step out of that shell. I want to be emotionally affected. That's what any good story in any mature medium should try to do. That means any relationships need to matter and tie heavily into the larger story and that the storytelling must be honest. A part of that is appropriate nudity. If the scene calls for it, it should not be diminished by the storytellers' reservation. If the scene doesn't really matter, if it's not appropriate, the scene shouldn't exist at all. Heavy Rain is near perfect in this regard. Mass Effect 1 was powerful and promising. Dragon Age seemed to attempt this and then pull back, which noticeably detracted from the game. Mass Effect 2 and this game seem to be far off in this respect, going the wrong direction, treated more as a light play mechanic than a core part of the player's emotional experience. They've become more marginalized and less honest, less intrinsic. I can't feel anything because they're too restrained. almost extranius.

Clothing:
Also related to immersion, why must characters only wear certain certain suit for large parts of the game? We should be able to build overall looks in accordance with the characters' themes, multiple looks for different situations that automatically apply, and if these must be preset, there should still be multiple situational 'suits'.. including appropriate nudity. ME2 is the worst offender in this.

Modifié par cindercatz, 23 mars 2011 - 11:03 .

[Wolfva2]

My cons....
You become a merc or smuggler for a year....and nothing but your armor changes. Really? You never leveled up in that time? Or earned any coin that didn't go to your uncle's debts? I'd like to see some exp and coin added for long periods of skipped time.

Combat more like Origens. Actually, I wouldn't mind a meld of the two game's combat systems, but I missed having so many duel weapon attacks to chose from. I also missed being able to wield 2 swords, or a mace and sword. Ax and dagger. Etc. Being stuck with 2 daggers only was irritating.

[thegrimfandango]

One thing to remember among all this criticism is that DA:O had legions of complaints about bugs and DLC problems and generally over not being Baldur's bloody Gate when it came out, it's only with the release of DA2 that Origins got the rose-tinted treatment and became the second coming of Christ so people would have something to scream about.

[Caja]

BluGirl1968 wrote...

Hello,

I would just like to say the first kiss from Anders is awesome in the friend-lover pair. That is all. 

Okay that is not all.

Also, Fenris moves like a ballet dancer. Very sexy.

Varric is a teddy bear and has the best and funniest lines. 

Agreed.


Now that I've finished the game something else came to my mind and I'd like to add this to my original post, which is somewhere at page 19. I don't know if this was addressed before... This contains SPOILERS! I'm sorry about this, I try to not to go into too much details.

1
2
3


I missed an opportunity to help Anders with his Justice situation. I know that Anders said there is no way to separate them, but wouldn't it it be nice to give it a try? I had Anders at 100 % friendship and therefore I don't know if this turns out different if he is your rival. But in my playthrough I thought it was a pity that I couldn't offer my help here. If he is someone I care about, shouldn't I be able to do that? It would have worked better for me, if Hawke had tried everything possible, had pulled every strings there are, to free him from Justice - just to fail in the end.   

Modifié par Caja, 23 mars 2011 - 12:48 .

[lobi]

thegrimfandango wrote...

One thing to remember among all this criticism is that DA:O had legions of complaints about bugs and DLC problems and generally over not being Baldur's bloody Gate when it came out, it's only with the release of DA2 that Origins got the rose-tinted treatment and became the second coming of Christ so people would have something to scream about.

Bad analogy, second coming of christ was more like one of the Origins Cameos in DA2, nice idea poorly executed.

Modifié par lobi, 23 mars 2011 - 12:59 .

[Zeolones]

Hi there!

I just finished DA2 on hard mode. Took me about 60+ hours with all the running around and waiting for something to happen. I tryed to get trough the game without having one character hit the ground and could do that just fine exept for one optional battle in the end of Act 3.

I liked the game.
pros:
-nice grfics
-follow up dialog in companion conversation
-"homes" for companions
-much more life like then DA1 imo. The visits, the surrounding, the voice, the quests
-ACT 1 !!! awsome!

cons:
-talk system:
--> why only 3 emotional answers and why without showing them?
--> why not giving the option to "just chat" about things you´ve already spoken about?
--> why even give the emotions/actions as picktures and not just let ppl read the text and think about it?
"real" dialoge would have been nice. Like DA1 nothing was wrong about that.

-iritating "caves"
--> why get into a cave and find a dwarfen ruin?
--> why get to look for a tevinter ruin that is cursed somehow and find a dwarfen ruin?
at some points the reused places just doesn´t fit the description

-combat system
--> why no look from above mode?
--> every class has at least 2 kill-on-hit-buttons. with haste and the right items even mages crit everything (autohit) just to heal inbetween
--> why go for bossfights that one character with a range weapon can just get done if hes not bored to death while runnig around for 30-40 min?
--> why allow "active dodging" in a rpg?
--> why allow "active dodging" while giving 4 characters and about 10-13 enemys every time?
it is either way: i am playing an action based game and go evade, dodge, jump, ... through enemy hordes and slaugther them OR i play a party and use tactics to get the enemy down and ocausionaly get a character behind a door to heal. combining is the least atractive option here. my 2 weapon rouge with his occausional bow-run-bow-action would have been enough to beat the game.

-bugs/ki
--> enemys tend to focus targets even if they cannot reach them
e.g. Fenris has cd on potions and is standing in a doorway waiting to get an elfroot potion; big scary spider waits in front of the door and looks frustrated; rest of the team is standing in the room behind the spider going for curses, haste and auto-crit assasination, to kill the spider in a last blow befor Fenris can heal
--> the blood magic thingy right befor the last battle kind of just stands around and gets killed (several times)
--> the last battle is a joke compared to the optional enemys ingame (act 2 and 3)
--> mages (exept blood mages) go right into their "bubble" waiting to get surrounded by the party. The teleport won´t work cause of stun
--> ranged characters just rip apart everything whil running around "dodging" counterhits
--> at least 2 quests are bugged and can´t be finished
--> some companion armor don´t exist in the game

-setting/story
--> the ending .... wtf? seriously? and i am talking about the whole story in the last quest not just the crapy fights or conversations
--> what happens to all the characters? Whats with all my desitions? Where is the epiloge? Did i just finish Duke Nuke em 3D or something like that?
--> way to less characters to speak to. but i guess that came out of the new dialoge system
--> why do i get every quest (or quest update) just by beeing ingame?
There are no "secrets" to find in the world i just follow these arrows without having to read anything i just listen to the voice-over-emotion or just click Esc to get the job done faster.
All the good parts about the new way of getting quest (rumors, letters, contracts,..), the living surrounding (companion homes, etc..), beeing part of a story over some years with follow ups get lost in the straight trough design

-inventory/items
--> why go for only 3 Sets?
--> why not give armor to companions?
--> why let mana-rings also be stamina-rings?
--> why no options to sort the rings etc. if you build the system so that every char can wear everything?
--> codex page needs to be sorted in more categories
--> whats up with the starts and the item color? It doesn´t respond on the character build
--> why are there so many bows ingame if noone can wear them?