Side note that was a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT: Just thought about this. I posted it in the org forum, No Qunari Women and Dwarthern women! Why all the cool 2D art and no appearance in the game?! It's very Bioware to talk or show a race and forget about the opposite sex for the game! Why werent they there?! Why couldnt I romance one?! The red headed Dwarf the artist drew reminded me of a mini Gillian Anderson from X-Files. Oh well... Just like in ME1-2 they forgot or spoke of the opposite sex for other races and dont show them, have them, or just to lazy to finish the game... Why was there DLC and only the wounded coast to fight on? I think my score actually needs to be 6.5... I just thought about the fact they werent in the game... Just like my finisher that vanished... Show a cool video of Mages finally getting finishing moves and then take it away...
Constructive Criticism
Débuté par
HawXV2
, mars 15 2011 06:50
Retour en haut
#1327
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 11:32
The_11thDoctor
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I guess the site glitched? I could see my post for a few minutes...
Modifié par aang001, 26 mars 2011 - 11:33 .
#1328
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 11:51
Spooky81
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aang001 wrote...
Show a cool video of Mages finally getting finishing moves and then take it away...
Lol, was wondering what happened to that move. It looked fantastic in the trailer, but when you get to the scene in the game where it's put to use, there wasn't much satisfaction and basking in the glory of such an accomplishment, it felt too rushed.
Remember the finishing moves you could execute against the Ogres, High Dragons, and Broodmother? I actually miss those and how the game would crawl to slow motion while you paused to take screenshots.
#1329
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 12:44
Thomas9321
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Here's an idea, modify the dialogue wheel so that when we hover over a dialogue option it expands out and we see the full response. I honestly do not see any way in which that doesn't improve things.
#1330
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 12:46
DarkSpiral
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I did in fact get a finishing move on an Ogre. It was while I was helping Nathaniel. I have no idea how to replicate it. If anyone can tell me how, I'd be more than thrilled to take shots of it. I did that many times when killing dragons, or Flemeth.
I have a piece of constructive criticism of my own. Spoilers to follow.
.
.
.
Perhaps it's been mentioned before, but It only really hit me that I disliked this aspect after finishing a second playthrough. The framed narrative isn't a bad idea. But the predictable jumps of time in exactly three year chunks was! For example: Why was I not allowed to watch my family move out of Gamlen's hovel. That would have been satisfying. Instead I am simply told I did do it. The narrative could have jumped ahead a month, given me that closure, and then jumped ahead three years to the viscount's calling upon me. Why don't I get to see Hawke offically named Champion? No, Meredith's little announcement does not count. It;s obviously a very significant title, even if you never read the Codex entry on it, and one little throwaway line has no impact. The entire focus of the ad campaign was The Rise to Power. And yet, once you get the, you have absolutely no chance to bask in the moment before you're tossed back into yet another crisis. Sure, this time you are one of the city's movers and shakers, rather than merely a person others are beginning to see as powerful and capable. But there is no chance to allow us to enjoy it. And, seriosuly, as the ultimate example of Rising to Power, why don't we get to watch ourselves be crowned Viscount, or become acknowledged as a hero to the cause of mages? We get to watch Hawke fail several times in the game. His mother's fate, his sibling's possible fate in the Deep Roads. Possbily the final fate of the Dalish clan, though that's as much Merrill's failure as Hawke's.
The game was pushed as a more personal experience. If the story is supposed to be personal rather than epic, then skipping over those personal moments of triumph defeats the purpose.
It's kind of like that moment in ME when you can turn Anoleis over to Special Agent Gianna Parasini. More often than not, I always do so because of the personal satisfaction of watching her haul that little snot off to jail. Remove that moment, and the entire scenarios would lose a lot of it's punch.
So anyway. Assuming the company takes the route of framed narrative ever again, then I suggest that the person or persons that decided these moments end up on the floor of the cutting room re-evaluate their priorities.
Also, the maps. It's been said before, but it was a pathetic choice. Yes, in all probability the amount of time involved and the cost had plenty to do with the choice. But it's been universally criticised, and for good reason. It was a bad decision, regardless of who actually made it.
I have a piece of constructive criticism of my own. Spoilers to follow.
.
.
.
Perhaps it's been mentioned before, but It only really hit me that I disliked this aspect after finishing a second playthrough. The framed narrative isn't a bad idea. But the predictable jumps of time in exactly three year chunks was! For example: Why was I not allowed to watch my family move out of Gamlen's hovel. That would have been satisfying. Instead I am simply told I did do it. The narrative could have jumped ahead a month, given me that closure, and then jumped ahead three years to the viscount's calling upon me. Why don't I get to see Hawke offically named Champion? No, Meredith's little announcement does not count. It;s obviously a very significant title, even if you never read the Codex entry on it, and one little throwaway line has no impact. The entire focus of the ad campaign was The Rise to Power. And yet, once you get the, you have absolutely no chance to bask in the moment before you're tossed back into yet another crisis. Sure, this time you are one of the city's movers and shakers, rather than merely a person others are beginning to see as powerful and capable. But there is no chance to allow us to enjoy it. And, seriosuly, as the ultimate example of Rising to Power, why don't we get to watch ourselves be crowned Viscount, or become acknowledged as a hero to the cause of mages? We get to watch Hawke fail several times in the game. His mother's fate, his sibling's possible fate in the Deep Roads. Possbily the final fate of the Dalish clan, though that's as much Merrill's failure as Hawke's.
The game was pushed as a more personal experience. If the story is supposed to be personal rather than epic, then skipping over those personal moments of triumph defeats the purpose.
It's kind of like that moment in ME when you can turn Anoleis over to Special Agent Gianna Parasini. More often than not, I always do so because of the personal satisfaction of watching her haul that little snot off to jail. Remove that moment, and the entire scenarios would lose a lot of it's punch.
So anyway. Assuming the company takes the route of framed narrative ever again, then I suggest that the person or persons that decided these moments end up on the floor of the cutting room re-evaluate their priorities.
Also, the maps. It's been said before, but it was a pathetic choice. Yes, in all probability the amount of time involved and the cost had plenty to do with the choice. But it's been universally criticised, and for good reason. It was a bad decision, regardless of who actually made it.
#1332
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 01:37
Infinite Paragon
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I hope i'm putting this in the right place. Anyways, three things i can add to this:
1.) Combat speed: That's probably been touched on before by someone else, but it was messed up. In DA:O, you became much slower when you had a weapon drawn and the actual attacks had their own feel about it. (i.e. Bringing back your Greatsword for a swing at your opponent.) In DA2, that was completely screwed up. Hawke is by no means any form of super-being. Swinging a Greatsword around should not feel as light and as fast as swinging a stick in the air. You certainly shouldn't be able to run faster when you have your Greatsword drawn rather than when its on your back.
2.) Facial expressions: I think it speaks for itself. You try to have alot of emotions presented in scenes (i.e. Sir Wesley's death) but the only emotions i've seen on characters faces are either very big smirks, disgust and looks of horror, to a lesser extent. It's imperative that when you have a very emotional scene playing out, or just dialogue in general, that the characters are able to express and show what they feel. Even more so, you need to be able to tell what they're feeling.
3.) Dialogue choices: The dialogue wheel was, in my opinion, a step in the right direction for DA2. What was done wrong, however, was that it became extremely linear. You have so many different dialogue icons and possible ways to speak to a person, but you almost always get the diplomatic, snarky or angry only. It also made the dialogue too linear in the sense that you could only really speak that way. There is a simple solution to this, and that is to, not including whatever tone your character tends to take in dialogue, present two emotions in a single dialogue choice. If i spoke diplomatically most of the time, and i decided to choose a diplomatic/snarky option, then i would speak it exactly like that, but have more emphasis on the diplomatic side of the dialogue choice because that's how i usually speak, and not the snarky side. Just enough to show that's my diplomatic personality, but not so much that it completely overshadows the snarky side of the dialogue.
Sorry if this wasn't the place to put it.
1.) Combat speed: That's probably been touched on before by someone else, but it was messed up. In DA:O, you became much slower when you had a weapon drawn and the actual attacks had their own feel about it. (i.e. Bringing back your Greatsword for a swing at your opponent.) In DA2, that was completely screwed up. Hawke is by no means any form of super-being. Swinging a Greatsword around should not feel as light and as fast as swinging a stick in the air. You certainly shouldn't be able to run faster when you have your Greatsword drawn rather than when its on your back.
2.) Facial expressions: I think it speaks for itself. You try to have alot of emotions presented in scenes (i.e. Sir Wesley's death) but the only emotions i've seen on characters faces are either very big smirks, disgust and looks of horror, to a lesser extent. It's imperative that when you have a very emotional scene playing out, or just dialogue in general, that the characters are able to express and show what they feel. Even more so, you need to be able to tell what they're feeling.
3.) Dialogue choices: The dialogue wheel was, in my opinion, a step in the right direction for DA2. What was done wrong, however, was that it became extremely linear. You have so many different dialogue icons and possible ways to speak to a person, but you almost always get the diplomatic, snarky or angry only. It also made the dialogue too linear in the sense that you could only really speak that way. There is a simple solution to this, and that is to, not including whatever tone your character tends to take in dialogue, present two emotions in a single dialogue choice. If i spoke diplomatically most of the time, and i decided to choose a diplomatic/snarky option, then i would speak it exactly like that, but have more emphasis on the diplomatic side of the dialogue choice because that's how i usually speak, and not the snarky side. Just enough to show that's my diplomatic personality, but not so much that it completely overshadows the snarky side of the dialogue.
Sorry if this wasn't the place to put it.
#1333
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 01:50
qaqaqa874
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I'll start with the "immersion" issues:
After playing through once completely with a blood mage and always siding with the mages and qunari it really makes me feel like my choices have no impact at all, I always end up killing other blood mages, often for no reason other than them being blood mages, which really doesn't make perfect sense when I am one myself and also have a second one in my party.
Generally I often ended up slaughtering my way through mobs without even knowing why. This felt more like Diablo than what I'm used to from BW games. This wasn't necessary in DAO because most mobs were either omnievil darkspawn or from a rival faction but there's mostly humans in DA2.
And recycled dungeons of course...
Combat:
First, I played on nightmare, usual party setup MageHawke, Aveline, Isabela/Varric, Merrill/Anders. I'll be posting some of my "strategies" to display how incomplete the mechanics are so if you don't want that stop reading. Difficulty was fine for me except for one boss in the Deep Roads for whom I had to lower it.
The most frustrating thing for me was knockback. Every single hit on anyone but Aveline caused them to be sent flying 10 meters just to be hit by another arrow/dagger after getting up and fly again. This alone forced me to pick Force Mage, though that turned out to be decent anyway. But without special non-knockback skills/gear it's pretty much game over as soon as an archer aims at a mage/rogue because they won't be able to do anything other than being knocked around.
Enemy rogues weren't especially overpowered they just needed to be kited. Like every powerful enemy. Kiting is a rather foolproof strategy in DA2 because melee hits actually hit AFTER the animation is done so ... get in range to start animation, 2 steps back, fire 1 spell/arrow/staffshot, repeat. But yeah, random rogues were more challenging than the high dragon (just had Aveline immune to fire and standing out of melee range with the occassional taunt).
The whole everything spawning in waves thing is also quite annoying, found myself thinking "oh come on more of them?" quite often. Can also be abused by just pulling the mobs away far enough for the respawns not to aggro so you end up fighting every wave on its own. A valid strategy for boss battles but it's annoying having to do it for random thug gangs.
Aggro seemed very random. Often a whole group of mobs would go after a party member who did absolutely nothing at all.
The camera... has been mentioned often but I just read in an interview "it's just a hot-button issue because it's different than DAO"... no it's a hot-button issue because the camera as it is makes it really hard to correctly position aoe spells (necessary in nightmare in order to not blow up your own people). I often had to run in close with my mages just to get the camera in the right angle to position a fireball to blow up the mobs but not Aveline... until i made her immune to fire that is. Combine that with random aggro patterns and the knockback thing... weee Quickload.
Having the non-Hawke melees set to one weapon is a huge setback. Not having a ranged weapon just makes Isabela utterly useless in some fights. It also forced me to use Aveline who didn't exactly fit my blood mage Hawke just because I can't give a shield to Fenris (who admittedly also didn't fit that much better).
Evasion... either everything is considered a boss on nightmare or evasion is broken (or I am understanding the menu wrong). My Isabela (with buffs + cunning build for high numbers on crits) was supposed to evade 80% from "normal mobs" and "lieutenants"(sp?) and 65% from bosses, yet she evaded like 1/5 hits from anyone.
I really need a "dont cast heal on yourself while blood magic is on"-tactic...
Inventory:
I didnt like not being able to gear my people. Yes, unique style etc but a rune or two doesnt allow me to adjust them to my playstyle. Not to mention that it makes 90% loot completely pointless.
To that end a "loot all directly to junk"-button in the loot window would be nice since it's tedious to send all the mostly pointless stuff to junk manually. The junk category itself is nice because it removes all that pointless stuff from inventory and makes selling that much faster.
Item names are just too generic. There's really no point in naming every item "Belt" that has a belt-icon.
Bosses just don't have rewarding drops. Especially on nightmare when you're fighting a boss for an hour it's pretty disappointing to get nothing for it other than the feeling of accomplishment and minor money.
That being said... I did have fun playing the game, it's just not up there with BW's other games.
After playing through once completely with a blood mage and always siding with the mages and qunari it really makes me feel like my choices have no impact at all, I always end up killing other blood mages, often for no reason other than them being blood mages, which really doesn't make perfect sense when I am one myself and also have a second one in my party.
Generally I often ended up slaughtering my way through mobs without even knowing why. This felt more like Diablo than what I'm used to from BW games. This wasn't necessary in DAO because most mobs were either omnievil darkspawn or from a rival faction but there's mostly humans in DA2.
And recycled dungeons of course...
Combat:
First, I played on nightmare, usual party setup MageHawke, Aveline, Isabela/Varric, Merrill/Anders. I'll be posting some of my "strategies" to display how incomplete the mechanics are so if you don't want that stop reading. Difficulty was fine for me except for one boss in the Deep Roads for whom I had to lower it.
The most frustrating thing for me was knockback. Every single hit on anyone but Aveline caused them to be sent flying 10 meters just to be hit by another arrow/dagger after getting up and fly again. This alone forced me to pick Force Mage, though that turned out to be decent anyway. But without special non-knockback skills/gear it's pretty much game over as soon as an archer aims at a mage/rogue because they won't be able to do anything other than being knocked around.
Enemy rogues weren't especially overpowered they just needed to be kited. Like every powerful enemy. Kiting is a rather foolproof strategy in DA2 because melee hits actually hit AFTER the animation is done so ... get in range to start animation, 2 steps back, fire 1 spell/arrow/staffshot, repeat. But yeah, random rogues were more challenging than the high dragon (just had Aveline immune to fire and standing out of melee range with the occassional taunt).
The whole everything spawning in waves thing is also quite annoying, found myself thinking "oh come on more of them?" quite often. Can also be abused by just pulling the mobs away far enough for the respawns not to aggro so you end up fighting every wave on its own. A valid strategy for boss battles but it's annoying having to do it for random thug gangs.
Aggro seemed very random. Often a whole group of mobs would go after a party member who did absolutely nothing at all.
The camera... has been mentioned often but I just read in an interview "it's just a hot-button issue because it's different than DAO"... no it's a hot-button issue because the camera as it is makes it really hard to correctly position aoe spells (necessary in nightmare in order to not blow up your own people). I often had to run in close with my mages just to get the camera in the right angle to position a fireball to blow up the mobs but not Aveline... until i made her immune to fire that is. Combine that with random aggro patterns and the knockback thing... weee Quickload.
Having the non-Hawke melees set to one weapon is a huge setback. Not having a ranged weapon just makes Isabela utterly useless in some fights. It also forced me to use Aveline who didn't exactly fit my blood mage Hawke just because I can't give a shield to Fenris (who admittedly also didn't fit that much better).
Evasion... either everything is considered a boss on nightmare or evasion is broken (or I am understanding the menu wrong). My Isabela (with buffs + cunning build for high numbers on crits) was supposed to evade 80% from "normal mobs" and "lieutenants"(sp?) and 65% from bosses, yet she evaded like 1/5 hits from anyone.
I really need a "dont cast heal on yourself while blood magic is on"-tactic...
Inventory:
I didnt like not being able to gear my people. Yes, unique style etc but a rune or two doesnt allow me to adjust them to my playstyle. Not to mention that it makes 90% loot completely pointless.
To that end a "loot all directly to junk"-button in the loot window would be nice since it's tedious to send all the mostly pointless stuff to junk manually. The junk category itself is nice because it removes all that pointless stuff from inventory and makes selling that much faster.
Item names are just too generic. There's really no point in naming every item "Belt" that has a belt-icon.
Bosses just don't have rewarding drops. Especially on nightmare when you're fighting a boss for an hour it's pretty disappointing to get nothing for it other than the feeling of accomplishment and minor money.
That being said... I did have fun playing the game, it's just not up there with BW's other games.
Modifié par qaqaqa874, 26 mars 2011 - 01:54 .
#1334
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 01:59
Pwnsaur
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Hybrid-Homer wrote...
Lack of "useless" NPCs. It seems that every single NPC that you can engage in a dialog wheel conversation with is related to a quest. The only time you can talk to them is during that quest (with only a few exceptions). The rest of the time you can only get floating text from them. If they're even there, as many NPCs only seem to exist when they are involved in an active quest. There's no NPCs that you can just ask various questions about things. I guess with it all in one largely unchanging city that limits the "where should I go to find..." type questions, but still. Would have been nice to talk to some unimportant people about Kirkwall, their opinions on the various factions in the game, or whatever else.
This is somehwat the same thing... can barely talk to your friends, family, and companions. The lack of being able to pick your companions brains about seemingly dozens of topics is very missed from DA:O. You can pretty much only talk to them during their quests, when they butt in on your quests, or when you give them their one gift. It's even worse for close NPCs like your mother. She might as well not have been there for all of act two where she said she was proud, told me about her maybe wanting to date, then repeating the same line about "those elves you're friends with" every single time I came home after that. There's seemingly more opportunities to talk to your DOG than your mother. Also after Bethany goes to the circle, Hawke doesn't care to go visit at all? Seems like a horrible brother considering even Uncle goes to visit her.
I actually agreed with everything in your post, but these two points are the elephants in the room. When I see another person mention this I feel hope that they may return. Please BioWare, BRING BACK THE DIALOGUE. I can't even believe I have to ask for this, it's a freaking BIOWARE GAME for gods' sakes....
#1335
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:03
Alex Kershaw
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Things I liked:
- Tactics improvements including more slots and new options such as 'ally=dead' and 'use current condition for next tactic'
- The new looting system where you can just press R to loot all
- Graphics
- Voice acting
- Companion AI, such as mages running away from melee combat
- Mages hitting with the staff from melee distance
- The
amount and size of companion quests (note I'm not saying I liked the
actual quests, but I liked that more emphasis was placed on them, which
could have worked if the quests were actually any good) - Skill trees
- Automatic quick save
- Repeated dungeons
- Inability to talk to companions anywhere
- Inability to talk to companions out of quests
- Limited companion conversations
- Entire game in one city
- Appearance of cameo characters
- Locations don't change over time
- 10-year span - Any DAO characters in a DA3 will all be really old =[
- Failed attempt at making the gaps in years seem real
- Lack of actual choice
- Dialogue wheel
- Voiced PC
- Dialogue icons
- Combat animations
- Removal of skills
- Spawning enemies from mid-air
- Enemy waves
- Inbalanced abilities
- Lack of companion customisation
- Lack of DAO cameos
- Generic names in inventory items
- Small backspace space
- Still too small number of available tactics
- Removal of DAO abilities such as Force Field
- No main plot
- *Tiny spoiler* Act 2 completely unrelated to act 3 */end spoiler*
- No difference between side and main quests
- Boring fetch quests
- Quests where you find item in barrel -> deliver to randomer -> profit
- Lack of puzzles
- Lack of good secondary characters
- Revisiting the same locations (e.g. Wounded Coast) and having to unlock the map all over again in each act instead of unlocking a new map instead in each Act, as a bear minimum
- Heart icon = too easy and forced romances
- Appearance of UI
- Having to click left/right buttons in some parts of the UI instead of drop-downs
- Still having to scroll down because of unnecessarily huge buttons in tactics drop-downs
- Not being able to view what an ability does on the tactics screen
- Lack of overhead camera
- Codex entries not importing from DAO
Modifié par Alex Kershaw, 26 mars 2011 - 02:35 .
#1336
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:05
Alex Kershaw
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Modifié par Alex Kershaw, 26 mars 2011 - 02:12 .
#1337
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:07
Lumikki
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Quest & dialogs & icons
Some say that romance icon wasn't good, because icon made it too easy. I agree. How ever, I don't like romance stuff, so it also helps people like me avoid those useless choises. Now I notice that you made dialogs choises sometimes mean more, based what player did choose or as who companions was with you. That was nice, but you could also consider alternative ways to do quest. I mean at the moment quests are still very linear even if players choises matters. There is no alternative way to complete the quest. Best so far has been when companion offers option to talk out of the situation. How ever, where is distracting enemies or sneaking pass or something different solutions. Also don't force player to choose from two bad choise, there should be allways more choises. You can't force player to take side of something, when they don't care, when they can just walk away too. It's like you force players to deside behave of others, when player has no opinion at all, because it's not players bussiness to deside behave of others.
Npc & enviroment
I liked how npcs moved little bit around. It made places more alive, but there could have been more npcs as it was suppose to be big city. Like many have sayed before, it was really bad how "maps" where recycled. Way too many different places had same map as enviroment. That spoiled alot, when you wonder, did I come wrong place. Also because of it, you know where to go, because you have been there before. Also in some caves you blocked doors with this stone wall looking stuff. That did not look good at all. If you change something, you should have at least try make effort make it look like cave wall, not blocked door way. In general I was fine with story been inside in city, but you need to also give player enviroments what make them say, this looks wonderful, like wow effects. Now it was nicely done enviromets as the little what you had done, but little booring as total.
Companion armors
I did wonder this little bit. I don't my self like so much collecting items to manually upgrade. So as companions has they own look and style, you decide not to allow put armors for them. Now I can understand visual look reflecting personality of companions. But what if you could have change the armors, but it would have not change the visuality? I mean there is only two reason why people change armors. Look and stats. So, just because companions look doesn't change, doesn't mean they stats could not be changed. Point is if you have loot based stat gameplay for players character, why not have it also for companions. Why it's allways so that stats and look is connected in items. Why not allow player to change look of gear and allow stats be changed like rune slots. Have like 4 rune slots and allow players to put stats in them. There has been games where you can take stats from one item and put them to other.
Some say that romance icon wasn't good, because icon made it too easy. I agree. How ever, I don't like romance stuff, so it also helps people like me avoid those useless choises. Now I notice that you made dialogs choises sometimes mean more, based what player did choose or as who companions was with you. That was nice, but you could also consider alternative ways to do quest. I mean at the moment quests are still very linear even if players choises matters. There is no alternative way to complete the quest. Best so far has been when companion offers option to talk out of the situation. How ever, where is distracting enemies or sneaking pass or something different solutions. Also don't force player to choose from two bad choise, there should be allways more choises. You can't force player to take side of something, when they don't care, when they can just walk away too. It's like you force players to deside behave of others, when player has no opinion at all, because it's not players bussiness to deside behave of others.
Npc & enviroment
I liked how npcs moved little bit around. It made places more alive, but there could have been more npcs as it was suppose to be big city. Like many have sayed before, it was really bad how "maps" where recycled. Way too many different places had same map as enviroment. That spoiled alot, when you wonder, did I come wrong place. Also because of it, you know where to go, because you have been there before. Also in some caves you blocked doors with this stone wall looking stuff. That did not look good at all. If you change something, you should have at least try make effort make it look like cave wall, not blocked door way. In general I was fine with story been inside in city, but you need to also give player enviroments what make them say, this looks wonderful, like wow effects. Now it was nicely done enviromets as the little what you had done, but little booring as total.
Companion armors
I did wonder this little bit. I don't my self like so much collecting items to manually upgrade. So as companions has they own look and style, you decide not to allow put armors for them. Now I can understand visual look reflecting personality of companions. But what if you could have change the armors, but it would have not change the visuality? I mean there is only two reason why people change armors. Look and stats. So, just because companions look doesn't change, doesn't mean they stats could not be changed. Point is if you have loot based stat gameplay for players character, why not have it also for companions. Why it's allways so that stats and look is connected in items. Why not allow player to change look of gear and allow stats be changed like rune slots. Have like 4 rune slots and allow players to put stats in them. There has been games where you can take stats from one item and put them to other.
Modifié par Lumikki, 26 mars 2011 - 02:25 .
#1338
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:09
xi ShadowWolf x
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I noticed the re-use of maps quite often too, more areas to explore would be better rather that recycing old designs. I felt like I had revisited areas several times over.
Modifié par xi ShadowWolf x, 26 mars 2011 - 02:13 .
#1339
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:12
xi ShadowWolf x
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- Members
- 377 messages
Alex Kershaw wrote...
Things I didn't like:
- Repeated dungeons
- Inability to talk to companions anywhere
- Inability to talk to companions out of quests
- Limited companion conversations
- Entire game in one city
- Appearance of cameo characters
- Locations don't change over time
- 10-year span - Any DAO characters in a DA3 will all be really old =[
- Failed attempt at making the gaps in years seem real
- Lack of actual choice
- Dialogue wheel
- Voiced PC
- Dialogue icons
- Combat animations
- Removal of skills
- Spawning enemies from mid-air
- Enemy waves
- Inbalanced abilities
- Lack of companion customisation
- Lack of DAO cameos
- Generic names in inventory items
- Small backspace space
- Still too small number of available tactics
- Removal of DAO abilities such as Force Field
- No main plot
- *Tiny spoiler* Act 2 completely unrelated to act 3 */end spoiler*
- No difference between side and main quests
- Boring fetch quests
- Quests where you find item in barrel -> deliver to randomer -> profit
- Lack of puzzles
- Lack of good secondary characters
- Revisiting the same locations (e.g. Wounded Coast) and having to unlock the map all over again in each act instead of unlocking a new map instead in each Act, as a bear minimum
- Heart icon = too easy and forced romances
- Appearance of UI
- Having to click left/right buttons in some parts of the UI instead of drop-downs
- Still having to scroll down because of unnecessarily huge buttons in tactics drop-downs
- Not being able to view what an ability does on the tactics screen
[*]Instead of listing things you didnt like, write what Bioware could have done to improve it. Hence the name 'Constructive' criticism
#1340
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:12
Alex Kershaw
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Starting off with the presentation of the game, the game looks nicer than Origins, in general. In terms of the actual quality of the animations and graphics, at least. As for whether flesh and bones should explode after being stabbed - that is a different issue and one that, given the grand scale of problems that DA2 has, isn't really worth dwelling on. I did find it odd that my rogue cartwheel-attacked constantly, kicked smoke bombs, etc, but if this is part of Bioware's goal to widen their audience, that's fine by me since it doesn't really impact the gameplay all that much.
What does impact the immersion of the game is the locations. The game runs over a 7-year period, split into 3 sections. Know that once you have finished section 1, you will never see a new location ingame. I would like to address the common argument here that the game is based in one city and therefore that was the point; I know this, but that doesn't make it a good thing. Putting the entire game in one city is a fault, not an excuse. The game couldn't get away with being set in one house, and using that as an excuse. The fact is - it's boring to see the same locations constantly, and they don't change all that much contrary to what Bioware might say. Now I'm reluctant to give this next point because it means coming down to the level of agreeing that the game being in one city is a valid excuse, but it must be said that the same locations are reused 10+ times each for different purposes, such as caves, warehouses, etc. The brothel is the same as all 5+ mansions you will encounter during the game, for example. This draws away from the immersion terribly, and is pure laziness. So this is split into two problems; first the fact that explore the same locations, with all the side-quests in the same places, and secondly that the same assets were used for apparently different locations.
Now while we touched on the subject of the game's timespan, I'll continue down that path. The game does not do a very good job of making this realistic at all. You will jump forward 3 years and then have characters come up to you and talk as if it's the next day. Honestly - the gap could have been a few days and it would have ran just as smoothly, if not more so.
When I mentioned the locations, you might have been thinking of ME1. But no, it's worse than that. This isn't just side quests - all the quests reuse these locations. Over and over and over and over. I'm bringing this back up to make my next point - there isn't really any difference between the main quests and the side quests. The game seems to simply be an assortment of side quests, with the only difference being that some are mandatory and some are optional.
One of the biggest flaws of DA2 is that there is no main plot. There is no over-arching storyline, or a sense of direction. The first act is the worst - it's the introduction where you are simply doing chores for different people while you attempt to build your reputation. However, this doesn't make good fun. It's just the usual talking to A, travelling to B, having a massive fight with hordes of unexplained corpses and shades, then going back to A for a reward. And slowly, the story progresses. Act 2 has somewhat of a plot; the side-quests are completely unrelated but you at least have some idea of what the plot for that act is. However, it's completely unrelated to act 3! I find it odd that of all the criticism of DA2 I have seen, nobody else has brought this up. Act 2 and 3 have completely different stories as if they are completely different games. Bioware are meant to be masters of story - why have they forgotten the basics - stories have beginnings, middles and ends. This has nothing of the sort.
Now the companions are a main part of the game, and they're pretty good. They're not as memorable as Morrigan, Alistair or Leliana, but most of them sit quite comfortable below the interesting Origins characters and above the boring Origins characters. My main issue is that you can't really talk to companions any more. Yes - they took a good step in spacing out relationships so that certain dialogue options only open up after certain events, but you cannot choose when to talk to characters any more. You can't talk to them and ask them for stories or develop your relationships. You simply wait until the companion quest pops up which indicates a new dialogue option is available, head over to their 'house' and talk through a forced conversation. This was really disappointing because I didn't feel the same connection as I did in Origins. If somebody asked me about the back-story of Leliana or Morrigan, I could talk for quite some time about it. Ask me about Aveline and I'd give you a couple of sentences, despite her being the most active character in DA2.
This leads on to the new dialogue wheel, which was disappointing. In Origins, the silent PC meant that you had to be given enough information as to know what he had said, and the companions had to react strongly enough for it to have meaning. It meant that you had to learn about the characters and understand them. For example, talk about love to Morrigan and you get negative points. Talk about love to Leliana and you get bonus points. Pursuing a romance was something you had to work towards by understanding the character. In DA2, you simply choose a personality for Hawke and you're done. Simply mass-click on that personality and nothing bad can happen, because the simple dialogue choices you make don't affect anything. To pursue a romance, just click the love heart symbol when it pops up and you're done. Instead of trying to work a romance, you simply decide to do one, and you cannot fail. It takes away the challenge but also means that there's no need to get to know any of the characters because what you say has no impact. In Origins, if you said the wrong thing, you would lose approval points and they would dislike you more, as is realistic. In DA2, you say the wrong thing and get rivalry points, which works almost exactly the same as friendship points, but with slightly different bonuses. It just makes the whole point of conversing pointless. It wasn't as bad as I feared though, since major choices don't have the dialogue icons. I say major choices, but the choices rarely actually affect anything - they only really affect the conversations. For example, I was forced into fighting the Quanari despite not actually believing that they did anything wrong. The ending of the game is forced too.
As for gameplay, it has been severely dumbed down. Skills are completely removed while inventory management is severely streamlined. The majority of items use generic names like 'dagger', 'superior dagger', 'belt', 'ring', 'amulet', etc, with just a few having actual names, and these 'legendary' items rarely being better than the generic ones. This is completely unnecessary and I'm at a loss as to how anybody felt it was a good idea. All it does it add to the frustration in customisation. I initially thought that I liked the idea of not being able to give armour to party members, since I never wanted to put Morrigan in immaculate Circle robes, for example, as it made some of the dialogue options not make sense. It would be more consistent. Maybe if the rest of the gameplay was not so dumbed down, the whole companion armour thing could have worked, but all it did was take even further from the sense of actually playing an RPG. Allowing boots and gloves would have been nice.
The new ability trees are good and a nice improvement from Origins. As are the new tactics options; I particularly like the 'use this reqirement for the next tactic'. It's such a shame that the combat is hit or miss. Many people seem to like it but I'm going to give my opinion from a PC point of view in that the combat is nowhere near as tactical as the original game. The fights are like chores, and you spend a lot more time fighting than you did in Origins. The enemies come in waves by spawning out of thin air and you fight massive groups. It's unrealistic that a group of 4 could take down hundreds of mercenaries consecutively, but again, DA2 has much bigger problems that things like this hardly matter. Still, the combat itself is definitely more action-orientated, which I personally don't think works in a game where the character auto-attacks. The fact that you can't zoom out doesn't help matters since it's as if you're actually discouraged from using strategy. You can't see the entire field of combat in order to use effective tactics.
My favourite part of the game were the Origins references, although the cameos were hit-or-miss. Nothing else in DA2 really struck me as being great or was particularly memorable. Overall, Bioware have tried to fix what isn't broken. Compared to many other games, it's a success with terrific voice acting and pretty good companions. However, Origins was just so much better and it's sad to see such a great formula ignored.
7.5/10
What does impact the immersion of the game is the locations. The game runs over a 7-year period, split into 3 sections. Know that once you have finished section 1, you will never see a new location ingame. I would like to address the common argument here that the game is based in one city and therefore that was the point; I know this, but that doesn't make it a good thing. Putting the entire game in one city is a fault, not an excuse. The game couldn't get away with being set in one house, and using that as an excuse. The fact is - it's boring to see the same locations constantly, and they don't change all that much contrary to what Bioware might say. Now I'm reluctant to give this next point because it means coming down to the level of agreeing that the game being in one city is a valid excuse, but it must be said that the same locations are reused 10+ times each for different purposes, such as caves, warehouses, etc. The brothel is the same as all 5+ mansions you will encounter during the game, for example. This draws away from the immersion terribly, and is pure laziness. So this is split into two problems; first the fact that explore the same locations, with all the side-quests in the same places, and secondly that the same assets were used for apparently different locations.
Now while we touched on the subject of the game's timespan, I'll continue down that path. The game does not do a very good job of making this realistic at all. You will jump forward 3 years and then have characters come up to you and talk as if it's the next day. Honestly - the gap could have been a few days and it would have ran just as smoothly, if not more so.
When I mentioned the locations, you might have been thinking of ME1. But no, it's worse than that. This isn't just side quests - all the quests reuse these locations. Over and over and over and over. I'm bringing this back up to make my next point - there isn't really any difference between the main quests and the side quests. The game seems to simply be an assortment of side quests, with the only difference being that some are mandatory and some are optional.
One of the biggest flaws of DA2 is that there is no main plot. There is no over-arching storyline, or a sense of direction. The first act is the worst - it's the introduction where you are simply doing chores for different people while you attempt to build your reputation. However, this doesn't make good fun. It's just the usual talking to A, travelling to B, having a massive fight with hordes of unexplained corpses and shades, then going back to A for a reward. And slowly, the story progresses. Act 2 has somewhat of a plot; the side-quests are completely unrelated but you at least have some idea of what the plot for that act is. However, it's completely unrelated to act 3! I find it odd that of all the criticism of DA2 I have seen, nobody else has brought this up. Act 2 and 3 have completely different stories as if they are completely different games. Bioware are meant to be masters of story - why have they forgotten the basics - stories have beginnings, middles and ends. This has nothing of the sort.
Now the companions are a main part of the game, and they're pretty good. They're not as memorable as Morrigan, Alistair or Leliana, but most of them sit quite comfortable below the interesting Origins characters and above the boring Origins characters. My main issue is that you can't really talk to companions any more. Yes - they took a good step in spacing out relationships so that certain dialogue options only open up after certain events, but you cannot choose when to talk to characters any more. You can't talk to them and ask them for stories or develop your relationships. You simply wait until the companion quest pops up which indicates a new dialogue option is available, head over to their 'house' and talk through a forced conversation. This was really disappointing because I didn't feel the same connection as I did in Origins. If somebody asked me about the back-story of Leliana or Morrigan, I could talk for quite some time about it. Ask me about Aveline and I'd give you a couple of sentences, despite her being the most active character in DA2.
This leads on to the new dialogue wheel, which was disappointing. In Origins, the silent PC meant that you had to be given enough information as to know what he had said, and the companions had to react strongly enough for it to have meaning. It meant that you had to learn about the characters and understand them. For example, talk about love to Morrigan and you get negative points. Talk about love to Leliana and you get bonus points. Pursuing a romance was something you had to work towards by understanding the character. In DA2, you simply choose a personality for Hawke and you're done. Simply mass-click on that personality and nothing bad can happen, because the simple dialogue choices you make don't affect anything. To pursue a romance, just click the love heart symbol when it pops up and you're done. Instead of trying to work a romance, you simply decide to do one, and you cannot fail. It takes away the challenge but also means that there's no need to get to know any of the characters because what you say has no impact. In Origins, if you said the wrong thing, you would lose approval points and they would dislike you more, as is realistic. In DA2, you say the wrong thing and get rivalry points, which works almost exactly the same as friendship points, but with slightly different bonuses. It just makes the whole point of conversing pointless. It wasn't as bad as I feared though, since major choices don't have the dialogue icons. I say major choices, but the choices rarely actually affect anything - they only really affect the conversations. For example, I was forced into fighting the Quanari despite not actually believing that they did anything wrong. The ending of the game is forced too.
As for gameplay, it has been severely dumbed down. Skills are completely removed while inventory management is severely streamlined. The majority of items use generic names like 'dagger', 'superior dagger', 'belt', 'ring', 'amulet', etc, with just a few having actual names, and these 'legendary' items rarely being better than the generic ones. This is completely unnecessary and I'm at a loss as to how anybody felt it was a good idea. All it does it add to the frustration in customisation. I initially thought that I liked the idea of not being able to give armour to party members, since I never wanted to put Morrigan in immaculate Circle robes, for example, as it made some of the dialogue options not make sense. It would be more consistent. Maybe if the rest of the gameplay was not so dumbed down, the whole companion armour thing could have worked, but all it did was take even further from the sense of actually playing an RPG. Allowing boots and gloves would have been nice.
The new ability trees are good and a nice improvement from Origins. As are the new tactics options; I particularly like the 'use this reqirement for the next tactic'. It's such a shame that the combat is hit or miss. Many people seem to like it but I'm going to give my opinion from a PC point of view in that the combat is nowhere near as tactical as the original game. The fights are like chores, and you spend a lot more time fighting than you did in Origins. The enemies come in waves by spawning out of thin air and you fight massive groups. It's unrealistic that a group of 4 could take down hundreds of mercenaries consecutively, but again, DA2 has much bigger problems that things like this hardly matter. Still, the combat itself is definitely more action-orientated, which I personally don't think works in a game where the character auto-attacks. The fact that you can't zoom out doesn't help matters since it's as if you're actually discouraged from using strategy. You can't see the entire field of combat in order to use effective tactics.
My favourite part of the game were the Origins references, although the cameos were hit-or-miss. Nothing else in DA2 really struck me as being great or was particularly memorable. Overall, Bioware have tried to fix what isn't broken. Compared to many other games, it's a success with terrific voice acting and pretty good companions. However, Origins was just so much better and it's sad to see such a great formula ignored.
7.5/10
Modifié par Alex Kershaw, 26 mars 2011 - 02:28 .
#1341
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:16
Alex Kershaw
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Instead of listing things you didnt like, write what Bioware could
have done to improve it. Hence the name 'Constructive' criticism
I did, but in a proper review you can't mention everything you didn't like, such as really small things that can't be expanded upon. So I created a big list of things I liked/didn't like, then made a proper review a couple of posts after.
#1342
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:29
Lumikki
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Why you list voiced PC as bad thing, is mute better?Alex Kershaw wrote...
Modifié par Lumikki, 26 mars 2011 - 02:32 .
#1343
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 02:38
Alex Kershaw
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Lumikki wrote...
Why you list voiced PC as bad thing, is mute better?Alex Kershaw wrote...
In my opinion, yes. I find it breaks the immersion to have a voiced PC. I found it natural in Origins - I would hear what a character had to say, then have a choice of five options. I'd read all five options and choose which one I wanted to say. Then, the other character would immediately react to my selection. It was natural; they speak, I respond, they respond, etc. In DA2, I don't like how Hawke says things for you. For example, after Isabela's 'scene' she says 'you're not thinking of bringing feelings into this, are you?' I said 'why not?' and Hawke shouts out loud 'WHAT ABOUT LOVE?'
#1344
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 03:04
The Ole Ultra Violence
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I like Dragon Age 2, a lot. I don't love it the way I did Origins simply because it's one part of a bigger story, and I won't really know how much it's worth until the whole things is over.
Still, there are some things I'd like to say, they’re largely negative because these are the things that immediately stick out in my head in what is otherwise a positive experience. So consider whatever I don’t mention as groovy pants.
First off, just as fast doesn't equate stupidity, it also doesn't equate impact. The combat in DA2 is good for the same reason the combat in Origins was, it's strategic. But it isn't "Cool" the way Bioware intended.
I think I'll just quote Yhatzee's statements on the artwork of Darksiders "A plain black shirt looks cool, a blazer and tie looks cool, War looks like someone started drawing him, and never ****ing stopped".
I would comment similarly on the look and feel of the combat in Dragon Age 2. There are times when it is cool, at higher levels to plow down an entire room of baddies with my warrior and watch them explode, but most of the time, it lacks the luster of the death blows from Origins. Why?, because it destroys the sense of being in contact with the enemy. There's no sense of dynamic movement or that my enemy is resisting, they might as well just be spontaneously combusting.
It's like the difference between God of War and Splatterhouse. Sure, both have tons of gore, but the gore in GoW is much more visceral because it's fantastic animation makes it feel like it's actually happening at the players hands. It also has variety, it doesn't throw the same thing in your face constantly, that way you aren't desensitized to it.
I say, take a page from the old KOTOR games. Do the animations with two models or more so that the combat syncs up and looks like an actual battle. You don't have to have the characters take turns, you can animate so that they attack and defend at the same time, and against multiple opponents. Make an animation for when the characters take a full hit, that staggers them and knocks them of balance, and one just for glancing blows. You don't have to sacrifice the charging and speed either, in fact make the battles go faster, stop with those HP attrition boss fights, and have a boss character that tries to out smart you, like those goddamn, insufferable, cheap shooting, backstabbing, potion using, mother ****ing Templer Hunters(In a good way, they were my favorite enemies 8D).
You should also bring back the finishing moves, you don't need to slow things down, when an enemy is about to go down, just occasionally replace the last few animations with a finishing move, you could even have ones that his multiple enemies. Personally, I prefer it when their based on skill not on luck, maybe a sort of reward for just barely surviving a fight or taking down an enemy quickly. Even then though, unpredictability is the key, so make a variety of them
Next, companions. I defiantly connected to my party in DA2, but there was something about the Origins cast that made them special... I could RELATE to them.
In Origins, everybody's more open, but everybody explains themselves. This happens in Dragon
Age 2, but not often enough.
Examples:
Isabella: Isabella does this well, by the end of the game I could understand why she was the way she was, I felt "If that happened to me, I'd probably be like that to".
Much like say, Morrigan or Alister. Yes Morrigan is a surly ****, but she was raised by a goddamn abomination. Yes Alister is a whiny doormat, but he's never had to make his own decisions.
Anders possess a strong sense of justice in DA2, even without you know what, but there's never any indication as to why that is. It's commonly been stated that evil is more interesting then good, but I think that's because evil is seen as something that needs to be explained, where's people treat goodness like it's supposed to be self explanatory, when really, most people are neither. Weather you're being "Good" or "Evil", you aren't doing so out of some objective and instinctual obligation towards morality, you do so for your own psychological reasons.
There are other examples of this. Fenris hates mages because one mistreated him, but that's a generalized and ignorant opinion. If he's a bigot, then why doesn't he hate humans as well, he's generally pretty contained for someone who went through what he did. His hatred for mages is never resolved like the other parts of his character. There is that one part near the end but that was sort of, out of the blue simplistic and short. His prejudice could have been an interesting statement about the cycles of oppression, ignorance breeds more ignorance and the oppressed becomes the oppressor, but instead it feels like something tacked on to add extra bite to the character, when it could have deepened him so much more. I still think he's a very good character, just not great, like he should be
There are cases in which DA2 shines, like at the end of Merril's quest, no matter how much she tried to carry her own burdens, the ones who love her carry them with her.
Aveline is another great example, as the story goes on, we find the person behind the knight, we learn that she has her own insecurities and weakness's just like everybody else. She may be the only character who's arch takes advantage of the increased time lapse in the second game, her personal life changes and evolves the same way Hawkes does, I was really hoping for more of this in DA2.
I still firmly hold Dragon Age 2 as a great game in it's own right. It just feels like one piece of a puzzle, with a few missing elements.
It's not as earth shaking as Mass Effect 2, but not as heartwarming as Origins. It's somewhere in between, and I feel that it does have the strongest PLOT of any Bioware games, lots of twists and turns, an actual villain. Not on the level of Loghain or Saren, but a good one, none the less(Until the end of the game when we’re given a pointless and stupid cop out in the place of a coherent backstory or human motivation).
Only time will tell if DA3 can make this the epic it deserves to be
Still, there are some things I'd like to say, they’re largely negative because these are the things that immediately stick out in my head in what is otherwise a positive experience. So consider whatever I don’t mention as groovy pants.
First off, just as fast doesn't equate stupidity, it also doesn't equate impact. The combat in DA2 is good for the same reason the combat in Origins was, it's strategic. But it isn't "Cool" the way Bioware intended.
I think I'll just quote Yhatzee's statements on the artwork of Darksiders "A plain black shirt looks cool, a blazer and tie looks cool, War looks like someone started drawing him, and never ****ing stopped".
I would comment similarly on the look and feel of the combat in Dragon Age 2. There are times when it is cool, at higher levels to plow down an entire room of baddies with my warrior and watch them explode, but most of the time, it lacks the luster of the death blows from Origins. Why?, because it destroys the sense of being in contact with the enemy. There's no sense of dynamic movement or that my enemy is resisting, they might as well just be spontaneously combusting.
It's like the difference between God of War and Splatterhouse. Sure, both have tons of gore, but the gore in GoW is much more visceral because it's fantastic animation makes it feel like it's actually happening at the players hands. It also has variety, it doesn't throw the same thing in your face constantly, that way you aren't desensitized to it.
I say, take a page from the old KOTOR games. Do the animations with two models or more so that the combat syncs up and looks like an actual battle. You don't have to have the characters take turns, you can animate so that they attack and defend at the same time, and against multiple opponents. Make an animation for when the characters take a full hit, that staggers them and knocks them of balance, and one just for glancing blows. You don't have to sacrifice the charging and speed either, in fact make the battles go faster, stop with those HP attrition boss fights, and have a boss character that tries to out smart you, like those goddamn, insufferable, cheap shooting, backstabbing, potion using, mother ****ing Templer Hunters(In a good way, they were my favorite enemies 8D).
You should also bring back the finishing moves, you don't need to slow things down, when an enemy is about to go down, just occasionally replace the last few animations with a finishing move, you could even have ones that his multiple enemies. Personally, I prefer it when their based on skill not on luck, maybe a sort of reward for just barely surviving a fight or taking down an enemy quickly. Even then though, unpredictability is the key, so make a variety of them
Next, companions. I defiantly connected to my party in DA2, but there was something about the Origins cast that made them special... I could RELATE to them.
In Origins, everybody's more open, but everybody explains themselves. This happens in Dragon
Age 2, but not often enough.
Examples:
Isabella: Isabella does this well, by the end of the game I could understand why she was the way she was, I felt "If that happened to me, I'd probably be like that to".
Much like say, Morrigan or Alister. Yes Morrigan is a surly ****, but she was raised by a goddamn abomination. Yes Alister is a whiny doormat, but he's never had to make his own decisions.
Anders possess a strong sense of justice in DA2, even without you know what, but there's never any indication as to why that is. It's commonly been stated that evil is more interesting then good, but I think that's because evil is seen as something that needs to be explained, where's people treat goodness like it's supposed to be self explanatory, when really, most people are neither. Weather you're being "Good" or "Evil", you aren't doing so out of some objective and instinctual obligation towards morality, you do so for your own psychological reasons.
There are other examples of this. Fenris hates mages because one mistreated him, but that's a generalized and ignorant opinion. If he's a bigot, then why doesn't he hate humans as well, he's generally pretty contained for someone who went through what he did. His hatred for mages is never resolved like the other parts of his character. There is that one part near the end but that was sort of, out of the blue simplistic and short. His prejudice could have been an interesting statement about the cycles of oppression, ignorance breeds more ignorance and the oppressed becomes the oppressor, but instead it feels like something tacked on to add extra bite to the character, when it could have deepened him so much more. I still think he's a very good character, just not great, like he should be
There are cases in which DA2 shines, like at the end of Merril's quest, no matter how much she tried to carry her own burdens, the ones who love her carry them with her.
Aveline is another great example, as the story goes on, we find the person behind the knight, we learn that she has her own insecurities and weakness's just like everybody else. She may be the only character who's arch takes advantage of the increased time lapse in the second game, her personal life changes and evolves the same way Hawkes does, I was really hoping for more of this in DA2.
I still firmly hold Dragon Age 2 as a great game in it's own right. It just feels like one piece of a puzzle, with a few missing elements.
It's not as earth shaking as Mass Effect 2, but not as heartwarming as Origins. It's somewhere in between, and I feel that it does have the strongest PLOT of any Bioware games, lots of twists and turns, an actual villain. Not on the level of Loghain or Saren, but a good one, none the less(Until the end of the game when we’re given a pointless and stupid cop out in the place of a coherent backstory or human motivation).
Only time will tell if DA3 can make this the epic it deserves to be
#1346
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 03:24
Pwnsaur
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xi ShadowWolf x wrote...
Instead of listing things you didnt like, write what Bioware could have done to improve it. Hence the name 'Constructive' criticism
I don't think the majority of these things require 'ADD MORE COMPANION DIALOGUE' or 'USE LESS RECYCLED ENVIRONMENTS.' The solutions to these complaints are painfully obvious, I think the BioWare devs can decipher the mystery...
#1347
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 03:39
Lumikki
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Other interesting is that what Anders does the action what is forcing the choise to player. How was it justice? I mean he want sertain type of justice, but what he did, wasn't justice. I mean player can even go agaist Anders so all what he did would be for nothing. Justice doesn't require killing innocent people. What he did was more like what "God of war" would have done. Meaning Anders did not even try to find solution or justice or vengeance, more like force everyone die and it doesn't matter who dies. How it's possible, when Anders wants sertain type of justice or vengeance. Meaning his action did not make any sense.The Ole Ultra Violence wrote...
Anders possess a strong sense of justice in DA2, even without you know what, but there's never any indication as to why that is. It's commonly been stated that evil is more interesting then good, but I think that's because evil is seen as something that needs to be explained, where's people treat goodness like it's supposed to be self explanatory, when really, most people are neither. Weather you're being "Good" or "Evil", you aren't doing so out of some objective and instinctual obligation towards morality, you do so for your own psychological reasons.
Modifié par Lumikki, 26 mars 2011 - 03:42 .
#1348
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 04:00
Nerevar-as
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qaqaqa874 wrote...
Combat:
First, I played on nightmare, usual party setup MageHawke, Aveline, Isabela/Varric, Merrill/Anders. I'll be posting some of my "strategies" to display how incomplete the mechanics are so if you don't want that stop reading. Difficulty was fine for me except for one boss in the Deep Roads for whom I had to lower it.
The most frustrating thing for me was knockback. Every single hit on anyone but Aveline caused them to be sent flying 10 meters just to be hit by another arrow/dagger after getting up and fly again. This alone forced me to pick Force Mage, though that turned out to be decent anyway. But without special non-knockback skills/gear it's pretty much game over as soon as an archer aims at a mage/rogue because they won't be able to do anything other than being knocked around.
Enemy rogues weren't especially overpowered they just needed to be kited. Like every powerful enemy. Kiting is a rather foolproof strategy in DA2 because melee hits actually hit AFTER the animation is done so ... get in range to start animation, 2 steps back, fire 1 spell/arrow/staffshot, repeat. But yeah, random rogues were more challenging than the high dragon (just had Aveline immune to fire and standing out of melee range with the occassional taunt).
The whole everything spawning in waves thing is also quite annoying, found myself thinking "oh come on more of them?" quite often. Can also be abused by just pulling the mobs away far enough for the respawns not to aggro so you end up fighting every wave on its own. A valid strategy for boss battles but it's annoying having to do it for random thug gangs.
Aggro seemed very random. Often a whole group of mobs would go after a party member who did absolutely nothing at all.
The camera... has been mentioned often but I just read in an interview "it's just a hot-button issue because it's different than DAO"... no it's a hot-button issue because the camera as it is makes it really hard to correctly position aoe spells (necessary in nightmare in order to not blow up your own people). I often had to run in close with my mages just to get the camera in the right angle to position a fireball to blow up the mobs but not Aveline... until i made her immune to fire that is. Combine that with random aggro patterns and the knockback thing... weee Quickload.
Having the non-Hawke melees set to one weapon is a huge setback. Not having a ranged weapon just makes Isabela utterly useless in some fights. It also forced me to use Aveline who didn't exactly fit my blood mage Hawke just because I can't give a shield to Fenris (who admittedly also didn't fit that much better).
Evasion... either everything is considered a boss on nightmare or evasion is broken (or I am understanding the menu wrong). My Isabela (with buffs + cunning build for high numbers on crits) was supposed to evade 80% from "normal mobs" and "lieutenants"(sp?) and 65% from bosses, yet she evaded like 1/5 hits from anyone.
I really need a "dont cast heal on yourself while blood magic is on"-tactic...
This sums up my experience of combat too. I also noted that the stupid animations affected the character response time. It was really bad on NM, especially with mages. They are most of the time doing the twirling movements, and must finish them before casting a spell. This usally results in getting hit before the casting, or missing Cross class Combos (great idea, but add Intra class Combos for DA3 please), especially with bosses whose effect window is very small.
#1349
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 04:23
AloraKast
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Astranagant wrote...
Ditch the long timeskips. A few months or a year at most would have been tolerable for me, but I can't be the only one who didn't like the idea of Hawke spending three years just sitting around.
Most people play video games because the game world is more exciting than the real-world daily grind of menial labor and sitting around at home watching the tube, I don't get the feeling I want to be transported to this wild fantasy world and control this character as he or she sits around and waits for three years for the next adventure to come to him/her.
Unless you're going to release DLCs where Hawke takes a year to go on a jaunt to some far-off locale like the Anderfels or Par Vollen that take place during those timeskips, it seems kind of pointless to have them since they don't really contribute anything to the plot beyond hammering away that you're not allowed to leave Kirkwall no matter how much you loathe it.
No Astranagant, you are not the only one questioning the reasoning behind the long timeskips.
In my playthrough I found myself wondering the very same thing; what is the PURPOSE behind having 3 YEARS go by in between each Act? I felt that a year would have been more than sufficient for Hawke to do what he needs to do in between Acts, as well as for the events to unfold as they did between Acts… both in Kirkwall as well as the rest of Thedas. 3 years felt overly long to me and I found myself wondering what Hawke and his companions did in each of those 3 years.
I can’t help but wonder whether the actual reason for the 3 year gap in between each Act was more the result of the development team going “Well, we have been saying all along that we are telling a story that spans a decade, so I guess we better make the act “intermissions” overly long… 3 years sounds good, eh?” rather than for any valid storytelling purpose, one that was dictated or necessary for the story itself. At least one that I can fathom.
Modifié par AloraKast, 26 mars 2011 - 04:25 .
#1350
Posté 26 mars 2011 - 04:28
qaqaqa874
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Nerevar-as wrote...
This sums up my experience of combat too. I also noted that the stupid animations affected the character response time. It was really bad on NM, especially with mages. They are most of the time doing the twirling movements, and must finish them before casting a spell. This usally results in getting hit before the casting, or missing Cross class Combos (great idea, but add Intra class Combos for DA3 please), especially with bosses whose effect window is very small.
That's right! I forgot that. I missed my usual Shield Bash > Hemorrhage combo countless times because Hawke was busy dancing on her pole. Not to mention (sometimes, couldnt quite figure that one out) not being able to run away during those dancing animations.
I also forgot that Winter's Grasp seems to have a small aoe that isnt mentioned in the description. Blew up Aveline a few times before I figured that one out.
And (Spoiler Warning):
If you dont bring Fenris to that Magister's dungeon he still speaks in the cutscenes. And if you kill the Magister without him it's impossible to finish his quest.
