2797 réponses à ce sujet

[Kimberly Shaw]

Silly criticism, I know it's for gameplay reasons obviously--but everyone calls me "Hawke" even though they call my identical last named siblings by their first name. Why am I "Hawke"to everyone in the city and he's "Carver"? Maybe just take away our ability to have choose a first name too and give an androgynous first name (kidding with this, just stuck out at me as something stupid and illogical done for the sake of software/voice over limitations)

[Shibibiba]

One thing though, that am LOVING is that darned mirror in the Emporium. Every shift in years I pay a visit to change the hair/beard/makeup styling of my character.

[avantoreon]

One criticism that has occurred to me in replaying is the attribute point distribution. Each class has a 'primary' attribute (e.g. magic for mages, dexterity for rogues, strength for warriors).

It does make sense that you should have a primary attribute. But, I think this value should increase automatically with level-up.

For example, if I'm a mage, when I level up in DA2, the only attributes it makes any sense for me to put points into are magic and willpower. If I don't, I'll be at a disadvantage in combat. I have all those other attributes that I could put points into, but there's no real reason to do so.

(This situation was also around in DAO, although there attributes like Cunning affected your persuasiveness and such.)

So, my suggestion is, in the next game, have your class's primary attribute (magic, strength, dexterity) increase automatically when you level up, so that there's more of a reason to invest points in something else. This also opens up the possibility to make other attributes more useful.

[Ohpus]

Lots of time to and from work in trasit and time to reflect while listening to the DA II soundtrack. At this point the only replayable part of DA II….



Some pluses and minuses :




- - - STOP! STOP! STOP! Taking all the RP out of CRPG. No options to Persude, no Intimidate. This is a shooter with a thin layer of RPG on top. Its not even what I would consider icing, never mind that it should be the reverse. More RP, less hack and slash. Example:

Hawk: Hey there.
Wizard renegade: Don't trust her, she is with Meridith!
Hawk: But you are a Blood Mage I saved you from the Templars earlier.
Templar Renegade: I knew you were on our side.
Wizard renegade: She is a liar! Murder! Death! Kill!
Wizard #2: I don't believe Hawk to be my enemy but I am just going to stand here
In the middle of the bloody barage to follow.
Bethany: I have no dialogue apart from my last line, so I'm going to stay out of this fight.

*** Cue battle music ****

Perfectly sane people who know the Champion killed the Arishok in single combat now rush to their deaths.

Bloody corpses litter the battlefield. Reinforcements approach.

Templar commander: Aha! I knew you were with the renegades.
Hawk: (faceplant on palm)



+ / - I decided to keep some of my junk. Like the naughty charicatures. On the other hand, why would I bother picking up torn trousers to sell? A broken wooden shield? At least I get to sell all of it with one click.

- What is the deal with not being able to unequip weapons. I can understand not being able to unequip Bianca, but everyone else gets a clunky default weapon when you unequip. Visually its just plain ugly. If I want an open palm don't force a sword into it, thank you very much.


+ + + I can play offline. My Internet went out a few days ago, so doing other stuff online was out. I started up DA II and was able to play with my content since I had logged in previously to activate it. With DA:O If I was not connected I could not play with my paid-for content. HUGE THUMBS UP !

+ Talent trees are a huge improvement. Multiple ways to get to the same place is good. Upgrades to talents are a huge improvement to the system.

+ Cross-class combos. Would be even better auto attack was working on the main character. I'm a PC gamer, not a console gamer. I'm not accustomed to mashing a sequence of buttons to do a flying kick attack followed by a sommersault reverse to execute the Lotus Death-Flower Power Attack. It made rogues somewhat uplayable as the controlled character. Too much button mashing while trying to control the team. I'm fine with letting the rogue do their thing and stepping in once and a while to issue minor corrections. Probably the only way to execute cross-class combos effectively as a team with the main character.

+ Combat animations are more dynamic. Rogue animations are more jumpy.

- Enemies explode when hit with a arrow. What? HEAP rounds in Dragon Age?

+ Removal of Gender restrictions on the LIs. Huge, huge improvement. Sure, some with strict views on this subject will complain, but Bioware has made a habit of including 4 main LI per game. Making these LI swing either way for the main character keeps everyone happy since they can romance the one they want and shut down the advances of the ones they don't. Bioware bolted in the opposite direction in Mass Effect 2 and left out obvious romances (Femshep and Jack), so this is a huge improvement and is more seemless than using a mod.

+ Defering to your companions in conversations. Make so much sense that Aveline would have something more impactful to say to a random thug or civic official than you would. I would definitely want Varric to be my agent and negotiate deals. I may get more coin out of it.

+ / - Visiting friends for personal cuts scenes. Great. But not being able to talk over things when they are standing right beside you seemed just odd.

- Merril does not have the Creation school so she can grab a couple healing spells as a back-up. I'm sure the designers had some rational for that. But this is an RPG and is story-driven. As such why on earth would she start with a spell in the Enthropy school, have a personal school that's all about elven nature stuff, have access to the Arcane school (huh? Mostly a Circle nerdy-thing, right?), but not the Creation school?

- Bugs, bugs, bugs. Characters in a random chat asked Merill about her demon. Hawk goes WTF? Lovers are always the last to know. Aveline seems to talk to herself way too much. Either glitchy or she has a demon too. Just saying….

- When a character levels you have no choice but to level them right away. Click on Inventory You are redirected to level up. This is very frustrating when you need to assign point to equip some new gear. I could not equip Aveline's shield as early as I should have been able to because I had a harder time checking on the Invertory screen for her. Its fine to check the item's stats since you can access the Invertory screen from another character, but you can't do a comparison to see if you really need to assign the ponts now or can wait until later.

- - In DAO we could adjust our guys withnew gear. With DA2 I have to toot a horn:

Anders: What's the emergency?
Hawk: Nothing, just had to give you this ring.
Anders: Seriously? I was in the middle of setting a broken leg….

Really, really got aggrivating. It was the same issue in DA: Awakening and I was hoping not to see it again.


- On the same tack. General pictures and colors and ratings and names. Had a really hard time figuring out what is what. Green good, but why is the Gold better than green? What is purple? Why is the red item better than the green one and is it supposed to be supressing a stats for the additional bonus? Why are items easier to figure out in Dragon Age: Legends than in DA II?


+ I love the little facial expressions of the characters likes smirks and winks. It makes them much less plastic.

+ Varric, Merrill, Avline, Isabella, and Bethany are very well done.

- You will notice I listed those characters in order of how long you get to use them. Just a personal preferance. But you DO get to use others the whole game. Every whiny, self-centered minute of it. Anders, what happened to you?


Seriously, seriously thinking of not doing more than one play through until some of these issues are dealt with somehow. I wanted to play a mage Hawk, but not sure I can stomach the rest of the mess that would go with it.


Anyone want to start a petition for a Master's Edition of the game that gives us what we expected pre-ordering this "sequel" sight unseen?

[Wee Joe Green]

Hey All (Bioware especially!)

Thought I could start a thread with a suggestion for a small improvement which would really help to improve the immersion in the game and its authenticity.

Lots of random sporadic battles take place in the streets of the city, whether Darktown, Hightown, Lowtown etc All of which normally happen suddenly and with bystanders just in their usual place taking no notice of what's happening.

Lowtown is supposed to be particularly dangerous at night and we get ambushed at every corner, yet amidst the chaos happening all around you'll have a woman say just standing there in her usual spot taking no notice of whats happening. It's particularly noticeable in Darktown where there are many civilians about.

It would really help the game feel more dynamic is these NPC's scattered and sceamed or called for help or even just generally disappeared for a short time while the battle takes place. Without such it makes these battles feel very hollow and pointless.

Just one, tiny constructive criticism to help improve the future games. It's the details that count!

[pnoel1174]

I was disappointed with DA2 story line. I can only hope that DA3 will combine the two stories to make an epic game.

[FyrusD]

 First of all, I am a MASSIVE fan of Originis, I mean it's probably my most played game of the 2000s. And I've loved everything Bioware has done since I found you guys when someone let me borrow NWN.

So I'll offer my views on this in hopes that it will help somehow or something I don't really know what I'm saying

The good: 

The Characters - Dragon Age 2 had some of the most interesting characters in any video game I've ever played. There was not even one companion that I felt was boring or unnecessary. While I may not have liked all the characters, they were still good in that I had a good reason not to like them. Basically, you guys did a good job on the characters, above even previous Bioware games.

The classes - We all know how the warrior and rogue in Origins overlapped a lot, but you guys did a great job making each class unique this time around. I'm currently enjoying a playthrough as a rogue, and it has a great ninja assassin feel to it. 

Art Direction - This may be a controversial point, but I enjoyed the direction you guys took the art in. It's fantastical, but brutal. Great job. I'm going to throw the interface in here as well. It was much easier to tell what gear worked with which class, and managing inventory has never been easier. Good job on that as well.

The Bad:

level design... I'm sure you guys have heard this many times but really? I understand using similar areas for caves, but it really did come out seeming like laziness... Every cave that's on the mountain should look similar, but caves on the beach paths should not look the same as the ones on the mountains. The main problem is that none of the areas felt unique. In origins, when you were searching for Andrastes ashes in that temple, it felt epic and antique and awesome. In Kotor, when you were searching Sith tombs for relics, it felt like a god damn Sith Tomb. In Dragon Age 2, a cave harboring a massive demon looked the same as a cave harboring some spiders.

Lack of Identity: In Origins, I fondly remember searching for item sets and legendary equipment. In DA2, I don't even remember if there WERE any legendary equipment. It all just felt like swapping numbers. The fantastic feeling of suiting up my character with stuff I worked for was gone, and even if I did upgrade my equipment, sometimes it was the same damn texture! 

The Setting... Kirkwall is an interesting place, and a fine centerpiece for the story. But it didn't change a god damned bit in 10 years. No snow, no fall, just the same places with very very little change the whole length of the game. Keeping the player locked in the Kirkwall area isn't good in the first place, but making it static as it is makes it even worse. As I said, Kirkwall is fine as a centerpiece, but the player should definitely have been able to explore more of the world. 

[erynnar]

Oh and a lovely person who loves DA2 brought to my attention something we both agree on and I failed to mention here. It was a terrible oversight on my part, please forgive me BioWare ( I am trying to give positive feedback too).  

I love the companions interacting with each other outside of Hawke (Varric and Anders, Merrill and Isabela playing cards) I really liked that a lot.  More of that please.

[neppakyo]

erynnar wrote...

Oh and a lovely person who loves DA2 brought to my attention something we both agree on and I failed to mention here. It was a terrible oversight on my part, please forgive me BioWare ( I am trying to give positive feedback too).  

I love the companions interacting with each other outside of Hawke (Varric and Anders, Merrill and Isabela playing cards) I really liked that a lot.  More of that please.

That wasn't bad. Also add in being able to talk to them anywhere too! I miss that.

[erynnar]

neppakyo wrote...

erynnar wrote...

Oh and a lovely person who loves DA2 brought to my attention something we both agree on and I failed to mention here. It was a terrible oversight on my part, please forgive me BioWare ( I am trying to give positive feedback too).  

I love the companions interacting with each other outside of Hawke (Varric and Anders, Merrill and Isabela playing cards) I really liked that a lot.  More of that please.

That wasn't bad. Also add in being able to talk to them anywhere too! I miss that.

YES! I want to talk to them no matter where or when.  I miss having them in one place too. I wish they would all move into Hawke's house ( I know it has to be bigger than two bedrooms).

[neppakyo]

erynnar wrote...

YES! I want to talk to them no matter where or when.  I miss having them in one place too. I wish they would all move into Hawke's house ( I know it has to be bigger than two bedrooms).

There is always the basement! Anders and Fenril can bunk together. Maybe they'll kill each other, and all would be good again.

[erynnar]

neppakyo wrote...

erynnar wrote...

YES! I want to talk to them no matter where or when.  I miss having them in one place too. I wish they would all move into Hawke's house ( I know it has to be bigger than two bedrooms).

There is always the basement! Anders and Fenril can bunk together. Maybe they'll kill each other, and all would be good again.

ROFL! One could always hope?

[neppakyo]

erynnar wrote...

neppakyo wrote...

erynnar wrote...

YES! I want to talk to them no matter where or when.  I miss having them in one place too. I wish they would all move into Hawke's house ( I know it has to be bigger than two bedrooms).

There is always the basement! Anders and Fenril can bunk together. Maybe they'll kill each other, and all would be good again.

ROFL! One could always hope?

lol yeah. Uh, guess back on topic..

Yeah, Anders, bad character, liked him better in awakenings.. *looks around shifty eyed, slowly backs away*

[fuji7x]

On the subject of encounters and waves:

I feel left 4 dead is a great game to get inspiration from for the 'encounter waves' stuff. In fact, on the topic of encounters, I believe Valve's left 4 dead is a great example of challenging, satisfying and fun encounters.

There are waves of enemies, but you know they're coming. The music changes, in fact, music is used as a cue for all of the encounters. Veterans of the L4D series will know what is coming just from the changes in music. Ranging from the horde to special infected, or in DA parlance, normal soldiers and lieutenants. When you hear the Tank's music, you get your molly's and start looking for it. This allows on-the-fly adjustments of tactics / strategies. When I know I'm in constant waves of attacks, I will conserve ammo if I'm low, I will consider using bombs or jars to clear a path, etc. While changing music may not fit DA, what could be done instead is using party voices. I've heard them yell out when they're running out of mana. Why not before a lieutenant spawns, a character says "hunter spotted" or something more fitting of the character.

Another area where L4D can be used as inspiration is the different types of encounters. They have the "oh crap, I stirred up the hornets nest" encounters, but it's not all the time. They have simple ones to let you have a breather and they have waves where you know you're going to be attacked from all sides. There's a variety. Very rarely do you run into a horde (or crescendo) event, and then a minute later, run into another.

Waves should be used as a specialty encounter, not as the common encounter, because then it is no longer fun and becomes tedious. The shock value is lost completely and it becomes more aggravating than fun.

[medusa_hair]

Good:
- The interplay between companions. This made me try different combos of companions.
- The interface - I could concentrate more on the aspects of warriorhood, for example, that I wanted and ignore the ones I wasn't interested in
- The romances...in DAO it was one and done, no one mentioned it again. Here your companions comment upon it, each act has a portion of it, etc.
- Being able to ask a companion to handle a situation...with sometimes surprising results!
- The dialogue wheel! I know many people hated it but I much prefer a speaking character - it makes it so much more real and conversational, ESPECIALLY in the romance situations...it always bugged me that while Alistair and I were getting it on I looked like a mannequin. I think some work needs to be done on the accuracy of the paraphrasing, though -occasionally I was left thinking, "HUH?"
- Varric - he was great!
- The voice acting of the female Hawke was great
- Real and permanent consequences to certain choices made in the game

Bad:
- Reused maps! If there is nothing behind the door at least get rid of the nonexistent room on the minimap, for God's sake! That made it even more annoying!
- The combat needs to be just a tick slower. The rogue has STYLE but unfortunately half the time I couldn't see it because it was too quick.
- A little unbalanced occupation-wise - I found myself a little short on warriors if I wasn't one and I wanted to do a quest that I knew would alienate Fenris or Aveline. Also, three rogues is a lot if you are also playing one yourself. I'd rather see three warriors and two rogues.
- I miss "persuade" and "intimidate"
- No-name loot. An amulet? What does it do? Just name it, even if there are a lot of one kind. After all, there are a lot of "mood rings" in this world but we all know what they do
- Here's one - please, can we have a masculine love interest? I don't care if he swings both ways...since you are playing as one gender in any given playthrough, that isn't known unless the character tells you (as Zevran did, and that was unnecessary in my opinion), I would just like to have an option that is strong and not screwed up in the head like Anders. I liked Alistair very much but let's just say he wasn't the take-charge type!
- Real and permanent consequences to choices...sound familiar? ;-) Let's just say this happened to me one too many times...

Overall I liked this game. I have played through twice. I did find it generally a bit amusing that Mr. Holy Prince Sebastian was a rogue - that's not a real law-abiding occupation!

Modifié par medusa_hair, 08 avril 2011 - 04:18 .

[erynnar]

neppakyo wrote...

erynnar wrote...

neppakyo wrote...

erynnar wrote...

YES! I want to talk to them no matter where or when.  I miss having them in one place too. I wish they would all move into Hawke's house ( I know it has to be bigger than two bedrooms).

There is always the basement! Anders and Fenril can bunk together. Maybe they'll kill each other, and all would be good again.

lol yeah. Uh, guess back on topic..

Yeah, Anders, bad character, liked him better in awakenings.. *looks around shifty eyed, slowly backs away*

ROFL! One could always hope?

Same here. I depsise DA2 Anders. To me DA2 Anders is from another dimension and shaved off his goatee (ala evil Spock) *backs away with you* 

Another constructive criticism...PLEASE stop with the laundry list quests...especially for the companions. Geeze! Act 1 here is your list...go do it.  Act 2 here is your list go do them.  Act 3 here's your list  go do them.  Especially the companions...Act 1 go find companion a, b, c, d, e , f,  check in with them.

[Morroian]

erynnar wrote...

Another constructive criticism...PLEASE stop with the laundry list quests...especially for the companions. Geeze! Act 1 here is your list...go do it.  Act 2 here is your list go do them.  Act 3 here's your list  go do them.  Especially the companions...Act 1 go find companion a, b, c, d, e , f,  check in with them.

I don't see how that different from a lot of side quests in DAO. 

[NovaZero]

Tactics
I miss the tactics "Use least powerful health/mana potion" and "most powerful" ... of course, stamina could be added too. Companion tactics overrall could use a few touch ups; there's a very tedius way to set up your tactics for someone like... say, Anders. True, the tactics allowing you to "use condition for next tactic" was like adding an additional condition, but how many of those do you need to stack up for exactly what you had in mind? Using Isabela and Sebastion as an example, they can build up an attack chain used for explosive strike (or the archer equivalent), but there's no real way to have it used effectively in tactics; in fact you have to disable your whole list, let them rack it up, switch then manually do it (here's a hint -- it's not fun). I'd of also liked to see a tactic telling a character to keep away (similar to how the passive or range behaviors are); sometimes you want them to stick around and take on the occasional weakling at close range but other times, say bosses, it's nice to have a tactic for companions to hang back or similarly, to kite big things.
Of course it sounds stupid just complaining about it but more of what I had in mind was like... an extra layer of tactics you could set for each character towards each OTHER character. Setting a tactic for individual characters is all well and good but not everyone likes to use the same character load out (in my case, I love shuffling my characters around). Perhaps?

Traps
Not a fan. In DA:O, I hated the tedium of setting it and the fact that you had to go around rigging the battlefield for a very shoddy result and having to up your stealth skills just to do it without exiting stealth. In DA2, however, you only have to disarm traps and sometimes they're so deep in the ground it's a little difficult to angle your camera right just to get a good click (could always have a good tactic enabling companions who're able to disarm them to do so -- you know, make the party's moving around a better experience given how the enemy sure as hell don't set 'em off). Furthermore, traps here aren't deadly. Well, yes -- they hurt, they send you flying and sometimes make you cry ouchie... but most of the time, you run into them out of battle... which is downright pointless given how your characters just auto-heal. All I'm saying? They can serve a different role; pile on crippling affects that actually break your bank trying to stock up on injury kits the same way DA2 makes you cry trying to find more stamina and health potions (I also noticed the irony that this time around use of mana potions was a rarity and only Anders really needed it or if you were a mage). I'm not saying they should be taken out.

Injuries
Call me masochistic but... MORE. Please. Both in DA2 and DA:O, you only get injuries from getting knocked out. Which also brings to mind... there's only 2 maybe 3 ways to revive a party member -- Anders, the Player character if they're a Mage and used up their spec point on being Spirit Healer, and a certain grenade that only appears very late-game to really make that much of a difference. But let's put that deficiency aside for now, and reexamine injuries. I feel they need to affect the battle more; if a dragon screeches and everyone gets reeling back, then you know, why not make it cause a concussion injury (I mean it sure as hell looked like it hurt) so now you have less health/mana/stamina etc and have to deal with in addition to having to chew on the glass of your health potion it if you want to re-enter the fray at 100%.

I'm saying this because it would add another layer of difficulty to the game... and I felt like purchasing injury potions were a waste of my time and character's money (and also elf-root potion... which is easily surpassed by restoration potion).

Companions
Understandably everyone's already jumped in on this but... I felt like you (Hawke, god, the player character... take your pick) weren't actually making a difference. Yes, in this game, choice is an illusion -- I get that. But, at the same time it would also be nice for your interactions, be it rivalry, friendships or even an off-comment... things you do to have more of an impact... for example, during Merrill's certain last companion quest, you swear that you'll never let her use ***** ***** ever again. Then... she turns around and uses it again anyway and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the world (yes, one can argue that Hawke was lying through his/her teeth but you can't make the same claim when you've had Hawke griping on about it the entire game). Now from what we've been sold on is that the whole point of rivalry and friendship is that pursuing either side of the spectrum wasn't necessarily good or bad but sometimes you disagree to stop someone from their own self-destructive tendencies... this seems like a huge backflip and it kind of kills whatever immersion's been built up by that point.

So to dumb it down for companions I have two words: Interaction and Impact.

Oh, and quick note: +++ points on being able to casually talk with companions. The other points on this subject have already been said, but... still... didn't like how it was taken out.

Player Character
Nailed it. Why do I say that? I love how choosing a certain kind of response enough times actually builds your character's personality... such that, later on if you've been a smartass half the game, Hawke opens up with a wity comment. It's good and lovely to see. Development, story, brother and sister (ugh, don't get me started on the ugliness of the other preset looks: +25 Rivalry)? Immersive and lets you sink into the game. Someone brought up the fact that being champion does absolutely nothing to you.

They're right.

All that changes is... instead of being called Hawke, you're now being called Champion. Now, given the nature of this game... the one thing that came to mind that I realized was more than a little annoying is... if you're a mage, you're an apostate. If you're an apostate (or, given your choice of skills, maleficar), Meredith should be breathing down your neck and I don't mean in the sensual way (what? She may be old but...). But how does it affect the game? IT DOESN'T! WHY?! Well, sure, Fenris occasionally whines but ... why does no one else seem to notice? You'd think casting magic in the Gallows would turn the entire map hostile, but apparently the player is wrapped in the Maker's contraceptive, preventing the birth of a beautiful game changing event such as the champion's or templars' slaughter. Pardon the dry wit but...

That's a lore killer.

The End
For now. I'm sure I could nitpick but really? I loved the game. These were just the major peeves.

Modifié par NovaZero, 08 avril 2011 - 12:09 .

[Snelle Jaap]

well just a fast one

good posts you all, i do have to agree with 98.9% of all the post here.

and i am still not happy with the gameplay/storyline/combat or DA2 in general
well you know just to let them Dev's know.

Modifié par Snelle Jaap, 08 avril 2011 - 01:04 .

[Cybermortis]

NovaZero wrote...

Tactics

Of course it sounds stupid just complaining about it but more of what I had in mind was like... an extra layer of tactics you could set for each character towards each OTHER character. Setting a tactic for individual characters is all well and good but not everyone likes to use the same character load out (in my case, I love shuffling my characters around). Perhaps?

Maybe what is needed/would work is a group tactic screen? This could allow you to set specific party members to specific roles - Tank, Healer and DPS - and how they relate to each other. For example one DPS attacks the same target as the Tank, while the second is set to automatically intercept anyone going after the healer. Individual tactics would remain so indicate what abilities companions would use in what situations and in what order, with the group tactics being used to denote the target(s) they go after.

If the intention is for larger battles in future games this might make life a little easier - and of course could be over-ridden as or if needed - say you know that your healer will be quite able to deal with the single Mob running at them without help.

This doesn't have to be needlessly complex, as assigning companions to a group-tactic role could be done on the Party selection screen simply by clicking on icons or moving connections around. The role being played by one character could be automatically set their individual tactics - so an Avaline would move from defender to damage to control depending if her role was set to Tank, DPS or off-tank.

It would require some work and balancing to get right, but it might add an extra (and useful) aspect to combat.

[Rockpopple]

Another criticism I thought up was that the use of the framed narrative wasn't done as far as it could have. The ending, especially. We really should have seen the consequences of Hawke's actions, rather than just hear about them from Cassandra and Varric. "Show not tell" right?

After-all, the story of Dragon Age II is really the explanation of how things got to be the way they are - where a 100s of years old organization has been brought to its knees all throughout Thedas and is reshaping the world. How did this happen? How did one man/woman make it happen? The story would have had more impact if we saw the end result throughout Thedas at certain points in the retelling of what Hawke did. How is Fereldan dealing with it? Orlais? Tevinter?

I think the framed narrative is great, but it could have gone much, much further. I hope that in future DLCs you'll be able to take this further too.

[Dalereth]

Hawke and Dialogue Wheel - I appreciated having a voiced protagonist that NPCs could refer to by name. I felt it beat out the barren face of the Warden in Origins, despite the limited customization options. Conversations felt more interactive and less one-sided. The dialogue wheel I like in principle, but I'm not sure it worked as well in Dragon Age 2. The problem for me was how distinct the three main options were in terms of tone of voice. It made any switching between them during a conversation seem awkward, and forces you to stick with the same option throughout to not lose immersion. I felt the Mass Effect series has done it better: Shepard's tone of voice doesn't change as drastically between dialogue options; it's more the content that does.

Setting - It seems that there's more or less consensus on this. A Kirkwall-centric game could have worked, but reusing identical areas to the extent that they were here just seems foolhardy. Kirkwall didn't change over time, quests over the acts were often doing very similar things in identical areas, the mini-map didn't even update on reused areas. I don't care what the budgeting or time constraints are: simply not good enough.

Combat - I mainly liked the changes, including the faster pace. It seemed too hack and slash on Normal, but when I bumped it up to Nightmare I could see similar dynamics at work as in Origins, and I've been enjoying it since. I agree fully with the criticisms about the overuse of waves, the amount of gore that defies logic, and the ridiculous backflipping, cartwheeling circus act that Hawke, companions and some enemies put on. So immersion breaking that I can't believe the developers let it through. There are also some companion AI survival issues that really shine through on Nightmare with waves showing up. However, the combat changes do make it more interactive and are an overall improvement, I think.

Companions - This is a bit of a wash. No complaints from me about the lack of armor customization - I didn't miss it too much. Most of the companions I really enjoyed, but Anders took a turn for the worse from Awakenings and Fenris can go brood in a jRPG somewhere. This comes down to opinion, but I just couldn't bring myself to like either of them, except the odd jibe from Anders. Alistair and Morrigan were much easier to relate too, had more depth, were more important plotwise and were just generally more interesting characters than any of the companions in this game. Isabella and Varric were great, even if not as deep as some of their Origins counterparts. I really feel that Bethany was a missed opportunity. I found myself growing attached to her in the early stages , and it gave more meaning to the Mage-Templar dichotomy - meaning that slowly dwindled away throughout the game. Would have loved for her to have had a much bigger role.

Story - I was really enjoying where it was going, but then it ended far too early. I knew an end game sequence when I saw it, but I was really hoping there was more to come to flesh out the consequences of everything that had happened. This is difficult in a no spoilers forum, but what I'm getting at is: the aftermath of what happened to the Chantry is far more interesting than the ultimately out-of-your-control events that led up to it. If the final cut scene were instead the opening cut scene of an Act IV, I feel the criticisms about the "going nowhere" plot would have largely been assuaged. If the story is about events that changed the world, let us experience some change in the world.


In closing, if the developers are reading through this thread, I'd enourage them not to be disheartened. Most people seem to feel that Dragon Age 2 had more steps backwards than forward, and I can't say I disagree, but that's not to say it isn't an enjoyable game. Despite my criticisms I can't think of a comparable game that I'd rather be playing right now, so you must still be getting quite a bit right...

Modifié par Dalereth, 08 avril 2011 - 05:48 .

[jklinders]

I'm very late to this party and I don't feel like sifting through 70 pages of threads to see if I am repeating what was said. I'll try to keep it constructive and detailed as well.


The Good-

Somewhat controversial I'm sure but I enjoyed the voiced protagonist. Male Hawke especially. When I first hear his voice I was thinking "oh dear God where did they get that poncey git from?" But he worked. Especially when you go for smarmy or diplomatic dialogue. Keep getting good voice talent and you can voice any PC player you want to.

I love the skill trees. This is what Origins needed. Picking out synergistic skills that compliment each other is FUN in this game. Now patch up origins to have this and make Sure ME 3 has something like this and I'm happy. You can really decide what type of Mage, Fighter or rogue you have outside of the Tank or DPS or healer and really spruce things up. If I had a problem it's that in order to get cross class combos you are kinda forced to pick specific trees over others which cramps your builds quite a bit but this is an awesome start.

Varric telling the story from a later perspective...hmmm, did you guys borrow that one from Alpha Protocol? I liked it but please don't overuse it. It worked here but it is really easy to screw it up and it would be downright cheesy to do that all the time.

Combat was fast paced and dynamic. Playing a rogue was fun but less so for a mage or fighter. I rolled a rogue first and I don't even want to play as a fighter now because the rogue is just too fun to hop around with at high levels. Maybe it's just all the standing around the other 2 classes have to do that makes it a downer. It's better for the 2 hander warrior but the sword and board fighter is just blah.

All of Bioware's trademark humour is here to be found. I found myself in tears at a couple of points actually. props to that.

The Bad:

Combat is too much of a grind. It is also as predictable as clockwork. Fight off a wave, oh look there is the requisite bunch coming from behind out of nowhere, even after 100 fights that is oh so surprising /sarcasm. Combat AI borders on the simple minded. It felt way too much like whack a mole. Lets dial back to fewer enemies that can actually co-ordinate and make things tough for you without being cheap. DA:O was HARD because you guys actually got it right. Then you had to muck with the formula by having enemies pop up in waves of weak idiotic mooks out of nowhere. Felt too gamey. Slaughtering dozens of of guys dressed up as guards in Hightown seems like fun on paper but try actually playtesting it next time and give it a real good smell check. It won't pass for reasons I'll outline in the next section.

Texture pack should have been in the main game for all platforms. Full stop. The textures therein did not seem to add a whole lot for the space needed.

It would have been nice to see other parts of Kirkwall like the outskirts where farming would have been done to feed this city of presumably many thousands of people.(someone please explain to me how the Tevinter Imperium would have fed a Million slaves on 12th century farming. Don't tell me a wizard did it either) Little details like that are the difference between a set piece and a real living breathing place to live. There could have been some questing there. It's a quibble but there you have it.

The Ugly-

Please don't get me wrong, I like this game but if it were not for this section I would not be taking my time to type all this out.

Attribute points. I would have to think very long and equally hard to find an example of attribute points being handled worse than this game. There seems to be three ways to spend points in this game, one for each main class. 2 str and 1 con for fighters, 1 cunning and 2 dex for rogues and 1 will and 2 magic for casters. Doing otherwise seems to crab your build to the point of uselessness. Rendering irrelevant the illusion of choice given. Tanks seem to deviate a little given how much they depend on sustained abilities but then why worry when you have stamina potions? I don't know how to fix it without killing the game balance but it sucks, it's lazy and it renders the extra attribute given in this game rather pointless.

Re-used environments. Who exactly approved this? One of the interviews linked above has a level designer actually going on record as saying he did not think it would be a problem. Obviously he is not a gamer so buy him and anyone else on your team who thinks like him a stack of good RPG games that never re-uses environments so he can see why it is a problem. Make a an actual gamer out of him and others on your team who have this blindside so that this never ever happens again. Nothing says cheap in a AAA title like that kind of design decision. I'm actually getting a steamed about this and the money I paid for this so I'll move to the next point before I earn a ban.

Dragon Age Origins had an old school style inventory system. Mass Effect 1 had an old school style inventory system. Mass Effect 2 took the inventory system and tossed it aside and it still worked because they overhauled it into something different that gave the game a different feel. Dragon Age 2 kept the inventory but then made most of it useless by locking your companion's gear. Huh? What? Why? Pick one, please. I beg you.(hint go back to Origins style for Dragon Age games) Going half and half like this turns inventory into some kind of Frankenstein monster that stumbles around mumbling incoherently and leaves with all this cool looking gear you can't use. Stop it please. It makes no sense, it makes it feel like you really wanted to do away with inventory but could not quite work up the guts to. So stop it. Either inventory or not. Though in a fantasy setting RPG you really need the old school inventory for all party members. Learn from this please.

The Story-

Oh the story. All of the above can be forgiven but the story is where this falls flat on it's face. It starts right from the opening act and never quite manages to redeem itself. freshen up your coffee. In fact I think I will too.

Hawke's family. Perfect example of a completely lost opportunity. Exactly who's idea was it to kill off a sibling in the prologue? I'm asking because it was not the smartest thing to do. I am given in the prologue virtually no attachment to any character. There isn't time because the home I have never seen is invaded by darkspawn and we are running for our lives from set piec-er groups of darkspawn. At the final fight the sibling who I have no attachment to yet dies( I felt more sorry for Wesley than I did for Carver on my first playthrough) And then we are spirited off from the tunnel like environment which bears little resemblance to any natural terrain I have seen (more on this below) to another place which is mentioned by name only(why not make that a quest in itself?) then by ship to Kirkwall. Now instead of feeling a sense of loss for the home that was lost and sibling that is dead I feel nothing. Why? Because you guys gave me no sense of the lost home or sibling at all. I never saw the home, I don't know where or how they lived. I exchanged 2 lines with the dead sibling so they are a complete stranger to me too. 2 Things could have been done to correct this. They would not have been that hard. One would have been to have the prologue be set at the Hawke residence in Lothering. Then maybe I could be brought to care about the lost home. The second would have been to not be in such an unholy rush to kill the Hawke family off. This would have made the loss of family more meaningful right from the first playthrough rather than missing Carver in my second playthrough as a mage for my first playthrough as a rogue. Hawke's mother was a bit of an empty vessel. Something could have been done to give her a bit more character but as she was going to die later on why bother I guess.

Just exactly what was the Viscount of Kirkwall doing while his city was going to pieces around him? Absolutely nothing, that's what. Look up impotent in the dictionary. If his face isn't there yet you should petition to have it put there. Someone that weak in that setting would have been toppled in no time flat. Pre-Renaissance societies were notoriously unforgiving to weak rulers. Someone would totally have removed him and started setting things right before the Arishok made his move. The Arishok actually made sense against the strawman set piece that was this weakling. No ruler worth his weight in feces would have tolerated an entity like the Arishok for as long as he did. One of his nobles should have toppled him and taken over years before Hawke ever arrived. There is absolutely no indication that this man was ever effective.

This was the wrong kind of story for so many of the characters to be openly operating apostate mages. Why am I able to call down lightning, fireballs and blood magic without the supposedly paranoid and super alert Templars being on me like white on rice? Why does no one look at my magic staff and robes and go "Heeeeeyyy now what are you doing out of the gallows?" My suspension of disbelief only goesa so far. When Baethany gets caught by Templars by laying low in the house and Hawke can deep fry a dozen people in the streets in broad daylight and the Templars just go "Good show, carry on now," my suspension of disbelief goes into the Deep Roads gets ganked by a thousand darkspawn and dies a painful death. Again and again and again Mage Hawke and his merry band openly uses magic and no one bats an eye. It's stupid, it makes the story stupid when it constantly ignores this when you have it as the main point of tension. Not even 10000 patches can fix this one. It's about high time that excuses made for it were stopped as well.

Don't even get me started about all the blood mages in this game. It was supposed to be a rare thing that Circle trained mages were stupid enough to give into it. But everyone in the circle are blood mages it seems. It's kinda justified by the treatment that Templars give them, but I don't quite buy it. These mages have been in the Fade. They KNOW the consequences of trucking with demons(hint they eat your mind and steal you body. Mages are supposed to be smart right?) but they do it anyway? Yeah right. NEXT.

Environments-

I'm only bringing this up because this has been a feature of every single Bioware game I have played going back to Baldur's Gate and you have learned nothing. Please stop making every level a tunnel. Why is every level a tunnel. Even supposedly outdoor environments, if you map them out they are a single direction tunnel that you move from one side to get to the other. There is never in any Bioware game anything resembling an open environment. Oh you can fool people for a but with stunning vistas, but in the end all I end up seeing is tunnels. You went even further downhill here though with doors that can't be opened, maps that show places that can't be reached not to mention re-using all these environments. But it's all tunnels and it's just not acceptable anymore. Design a new engine that gives you latitude to create larger areas to actually create worlds rather than streets and mines. Study the engines and environments of say the Elder Scrolls or the cities of Assassins creed to get an idea of how to build cities and landscapes. Then fill it with cool stuff and awesome stories. Please get us out of the mines.

I'm done for now, I may add more if I think of it. But I am a little depressed from typing this so I'm done for now. I thank you for reading this.