17 réponses à ce sujet

[Winter sounds_]

I want the most realistic challenge. Is FF still active in Hard, if yes is it a watered down version. I wouldn't mind playing Nightmare, but enemies with 'unnatural' super-buffs seems somewhat unreal.

Advice/thoughts?

[Winter sounds_]

Not active at all on Hard? Wow.

Does Nightmare seem unrealistic however given that even a common Darkspawn is 'super' strong. ?

[Waltzingbear]

If you're looking for "realism" or consistency to the feel of the game I think you'd be disappointed with DA2 as a whole.
If Origins had a great atmosphere with a classical feel and pace to it, DA2 is the bastard son that comes with the huge laser guns and start blowing everything up. Mobs exploding upon death, waves of enemies, randomness and almost no logic to what enemies you face and where, recycled areas and much more.
FF in DA2 isn't as well-designed as Origins and if not having it would have spoiled the mood for you it is overshadowed by other things.

[Tomomi]

Here is what Nightmare offers:
- Very high HP for all enemies.
- Very high resistance scaling on all enemies.
- Every enemy group has certain elemental immunity.
- Friendly Fire
- Knock-down/stun/knock-back lock.

The most dreaded Nightmare feature is knock/stun lock. You experience it at Hard, but nothing like Nightmare. A person with low strength (low fortitude), upon getting hit by (even a weak mob) has a very high chance of getting either: knock-down flying, or knock-back. It does not matter if your mage gets that ability in Force Magic tree that gives immunity to Knock-down. You still get knock-back. It ranges from hilarious to frustrating when you see your character gets a hit (from a simple skeleton, or a simple staff shooting from enemy mage), he would swing his arms all over, move back 3 steps groaning and move forward back to his original position only to be hit again. This loop (call it Knock-lock) will last until either someone else intervene or your character dies. Chances of successful run away is around 30% at best. If 2 on him, he is done for. No chance of Stealth, potion, Mindblast, or anything.

Second, DA2 has very long ability/spell cooldowns and very short effective duration. The chance of crowd control spells/abilities to take hold is only around 70% (meaning they will resist 30% of the time). If it goes in, it may last 4-5 seconds, if it is resisted, need to wait for another 20-30 seconds. In Nightmare, this is deadly. Enemies already have a ton of HP, it is not easy to just take them down. CC is not long enough for you to completely lock down anything long enough. CC here is only good to give someone a distance so they can start running. This also has to do with Heal spells with cooldowns feel like eons.

Third, friendly fire can be insanely nightmarish. Unlike what we had in DA:O, our characters' HP to damage ratio is very low. So it is extremely easy for you to 1 shot a companion (while the same damage can barely dent enemies' HP bar). Especially DA2 now allow warrior friendly fire in which you may consider very stupid. Let's not speak realism, rather game play mechanic: you basically need to turn off all warrior's 2h tactics. Without careful micro managing, a Whirlwind or Scythe can reduce even Aveline to death from 90% HP. My companions often die to my warriors more than to enemies.

This may not be a 4th, and may not be a feature, and it is annoying as hell. Each time you issue someone a command, say, tell Varric to run to the room corner to stay out of danger. If Varric was hit half way, he would stop there and fights to the death right in the middle of the room, forgetting entirely your command. This can prove VERY fatal when you tell Anders to cast a Heal and he "forgot" about it if getting hit even once. Or when you try to escape a stun/knock lock, you just have to constantly spam click to have any chance of escaping (while letting the rest of your party fending for themselves without your micromanagement).

Unless you are extremely good, you can forget about using Tactics to do your work. Beside some simple Tactics, I have to micromanage pretty much everything in each battle. It is simply too crucial to let computer decides when to use your precious abilities. And yes, combo is the only way to give you an edge against the enemy. You build all your characters around certain combo.

Currently, 2H warrior Hawke is by far the easiest to play on Nightmare. Comparing to Fenris, Hawke has more stat/ability point (from buying tomes) and can wear good armors. Although Fenris will work, but harder. Warrior would charge in and do a lot of AE damage, and mage/rogue would pick on any Staggered enemies to use combo on, in hope for quick kills. I am not saying conventional tank party would not do, but it would be so challenging in DA2 nature.

Regardless, multiple enemy encounters are usually much harder than boss fight, especially those advanced enemies that are partially immune to CC and hit like trucks (watch how they respawn mid battle). And no matter what, there will be a whole lot of kiting and pausing.

You can switch the game to Nightmare mode and give it a try just to get the taste.

Modifié par Tomomi, 27 mars 2011 - 09:54 .

[Winter sounds_]

I've heard all about the games short commings, it's sounds like a real shame.

None the less I will play this through once. So does Nightmare feel more like a 'real' experience than hard or is it too supercharged?

[Tomomi]

Winter sounds wrote...

I've heard all about the games short commings, it's sounds like a real shame.

None the less I will play this through once. So does Nightmare feel more like a 'real' experience than hard or is it too supercharged?

Well, looking at this from different perspective, DA2 is a good game.  You may complain about it if you are DA fan, but other than that (assuming this would be your introduction to DA) this is a fantastic game.  Replay value is much higher than typical games you find out there.

Nightmare mode .... nobody told you to play it.  You will do just fine in Normal or even Hard mode (read: Hard mode gets to experience the knock-lock frustration a bit).  Most of the complaints about Nightmare mode is mainly due to 2 things: Comparison to previous Dragon Age games, and the knock-lock (which is a rather "unique" feature from most RPG games out there). Namely, Nightmare mode shoots much farther from Hard, Normal, and Casual modes, like a giant step forward.

What I said in earlier response is my true experience in Nightmare mode. There are things I find fun and challenging, and things I find utterly frustrating.  But consider that as a handicap you are asking for to make your game more challenging.  And you are likely going to spend days researching various builds to find a perfect setup for yourself.  So try it, and if you decide Nightmare mode is not for you, go back to your Hard/Normal modes and continue.  Unless you are a Dragon Age fan, there are little to complain about.

Maybe you can complain about the recycle of dungeon maps.

Modifié par Tomomi, 27 mars 2011 - 10:07 .

[Winter sounds_]

Ha I've heard all about the maps. I am a huge Origins fan but more than willing to get into DA2 for the great parts I'm sure it has.

Could you explain 'knock-lock' please. And is Nightmare different from Origins in that it's easier or more difficult. I mainly want it on for the FF, which I enjoy having to play around in all RPGs. Otherwise I'd just play Hard.

[Firky]

I'm really enjoying nightmare - for me its much more difficult than Origins. I don't know why they didn't put friendly fire on hard, but anyway. There are a few niggles. Tactical camera would help, and commanders have 5 health potions that they chug, making them a little tedious to take down. But, it's really fun, IMO.

The stunlock thing is one of the integrated action RPG features. If someone is attacking you, melee or ranged, you'll be knocked back and can't do anything until you run away, pretty much, or get in a lucky mind blast or whatever. Just make sure that your mage and archer aren't getting pummelled. Good positioning is important as well as experimenting with stats.

@Tomomi Force mage thing doesn't work? That's one of the reasons I took it - only just lvl 7.

[Winter sounds_]

Hmm still a little confised howths works? Is this on Nightmare only?

Know of any mods to incorporate FF into Hard?

Thanks for the help guys.

[FrozenDawn]

nightmare is definately fun, but there are some battles where it is just better to go away and come back later.
Also for me the first act was the most difficult, since you barely have any skills and the enemies are just superior in every way
You basically have to switch off tactics for the whole game and some fights are really only doable with anders as healer + aveline as tank.
positioning is important, despite the dumb respawn mechanics.

But it's very satisfying to defeat ur enemies when u finally grow stronger ;D

Modifié par FrozenDawn, 27 mars 2011 - 01:40 .

[Tomomi]

Winter sounds wrote...

Hmm still a little confised howths works? Is this on Nightmare only?

Know of any mods to incorporate FF into Hard?

Thanks for the help guys.

Knock-lock is both of Hard and Nightmare.  Though I do believe Nightmare is more extreme on it.  But while it does look like a challenging/realistic implementation at first, it will become downright annoying and frustrating.  Here is why:
- First, in real life, if you have a bear swing at you, you will be knocked back, given that. But how about even a chihuahua (a tiny pet dog)?  According to DA2 Nightmare mode, you will be knocked back even something as tiny as a chihuahua bite your feet. And I do mean almost EVERY melee NPC will get you to a knock-lock
- The knock-back animation locks your character out of your control. So basically you see Varric stepping back with arms swinging like he was dancing, or Isabella doing some Taichi moves (yep, Taichi), and you would be stuck watching them finishing that animation without responding to any of your command. At one point I did scream out loud at them due to such frustration: you are about to die, stop acting like a push-over.

By the way, DA:O has FF even at Normal mode. They just don't take damage, but they do get frozen by Cone of Cold, or knocked back by Fire ball.  Anyway, if you are to compare to DA:O, Nightmare mode in DA2 is way harder than DA:O nightmare because of 3 things: the knock-lock, very long cooldown on spells (especially Heal) and friendly fire.

Friendly fire seems to be realistic in most cases.  It is just that warrior's swings are AE damage, and auto attack also does a small amount of damage to those standing next to him. And his abilities (Mighty Blow, Scythe, Whirlwind, etc...) become the #1 killer for your companions.  It makes you either not even want to have a 2h warrior at all, or leave warrior on auto attack without using any attack ability at all (and do it manually).  This is more understandable than the knock-lock, but still leave you to a micromanaging fest.

Dragonnexus.com already has a mod adjusting Nightmare difficulty with various settings.  You should look into it.  And I assume you play on PC.

[Zan Mura]

Waltzingbear wrote...

If you're looking for "realism" or consistency to the feel of the game I think you'd be disappointed with DA2 as a whole.
If Origins had a great atmosphere with a classical feel and pace to it, DA2 is the bastard son that comes with the huge laser guns and start blowing everything up. Mobs exploding upon death, waves of enemies, randomness and almost no logic to what enemies you face and where, recycled areas and much more.
FF in DA2 isn't as well-designed as Origins and if not having it would have spoiled the mood for you it is overshadowed by other things.

A lot of those things are a matter of style, and things you can get used to. Personally I love the exploding enemies. To me it doesn't come off as some childish Mortal Kombat splatter crap. Instead, it reminds me of something like the manga Berserk. Being ridiculously gross and bloody, while still mature. A style choice, much like Sin City's B&W colors.

However with regards to the world-specific realism, I have to agree that it just can't get fixed for DA2. I have a *HUGE* beef with how enemy mages have completely different spells from yours that can instagib your entire party at once. How enemy assassins get God modes when stealthing, when you do not. How some random mercenary can just up and be completely 100% immune to an element. And how your own mages then have been reduced to pathetic weaklings that depend completely on other classes to remain useful... in a world where the lore and DAO clearly states that mages are supposed to be incredibly dangerous torrents of destruction and power.

I think DA2 is a great game. But sometimes it can be a real pain in the butt in how the whole mob spawn system and those artificial and totally unrealistic difficulty adjusters interfere with the flow and believability of the game. Yes, I said unrealistic. Yes, that word applies perfectly.

The thing is, ANY good game will find a way to combine great gameplay and balance, while remaining faithful to the world-specific realism. A game that says "your toon is a God, power unimaginable" cannot be about your toon getting beaten by common street thugs 1 on 1. That would just be ridiculous. The problem with DA2 is that it's ALL gameplay and balance, at the complete and total cost of world-specific realism and believability. How your mages are polar opposites to lore and enemy mages, how enemy assassins have supernatural God mode, Taunt-ignoring and intangibility abilities. How the Arishok can take 10 000 x the damage of a frigging Abrams tank and in general is completely unbelievable and anti-climactic for an epic, heroic battle (as opposed to Loghain, who really was just an elite warrior, much as to him you were just another elite adversary)....

DA2's greatest failure, in my opinion, is not the repetitive areas, or the plots and quests which personally I quite like. It's how the fights feel and play like a game. In DAO or ME nevermind the earlier games like Jade Empire, BG2, KOTOR etc. I felt like I was in a world. I was living the story. In DA2, too often I feel like I'm playing with Nintendo. Getting yet another mob spawn out of that frigging room I already secured just because the game designers and system memories weren't good enough to do any better back then. Or getting yet another scripted staged boss fight who's 300% larger and has a + 1000x hp counter just because console gamers think that sort of stuff is cool at the end of a stage.

Edit: Wth? How the hell do I always end up writing these 3-page long messages when I was sure I only had a few sentences to say. Getting tired if my own lack of GETTING TO THE DAMN POINT.

Modifié par Zan Mura, 28 mars 2011 - 12:38 .

[Roxlimn]

Zan Mura:

I have a simple solution for you. Set the difficulty setting to NORMAL. Enjoy.

[Zan Mura]

Roxlimn wrote...

Zan Mura:

I have a simple solution for you. Set the difficulty setting to NORMAL. Enjoy.

For one, Normal doesn't have FF. For two, it still won't fix how the classes balance relative to each other. But it's not a bad suggestion. I've been thinking about picking up one of those mods that tweak Nightmare resistances and bonuses to Hard - Normal levels while retaining the FF. Then perhaps some mod that buffs the mage a bit.

Mostly just for clarity's and logic's sake I'd like for the enemy and players to share the same system of realism. That enemies didn't have 10x more HP than the players, that friendly fire didn't do 10x more damage to you than the enemy (same thing, HP and this), that when it's so very hard for you to get high resistances then no common street thug mercenary should have such an easy access to them either. That when your Chain Lightning cannot anywhere near singleshot an enemy group, then a Saarebas shouldn't be able to pull the same either. Or that when your upgraded Barrier spell covers for 6 seconds with a near minute-long cooldown, then enemy mages should be using the same instead of that 12-second duration & 1-second cooldown version they keep using. Many of the things above aren't even problems.

I've played the game through twice on Nightmare, FF isn't really a problem. The Barrier mages are a joke. And the most a Saarebas can do is force a single reload if you didn't see him coming. They aren't hard, challenging, or threatening in any way. Even the HP difference doesn't matter because of the AI, and because the player can deliver ridiculous amounts of damage too through CCC's. They simply feel inconsistent, exploitish, unrealistic with regards to DA's world specific realism, and plain wrong.

This is all - of course - merely my opinion.

[Tomomi]

You know, at this very moment, I would be happy as long as the game functions as intended. Instead of having bugs appearing left and right that really crippled my gaming experience.

@ Zan Mura: to be correct, Friendly fire doesn't do 10x more damage to ally. They just do the same. But I do know where you get this thought. Because enemy have way too many HP, many of our abilities seem to barely dent enemy with the same damage yet easily 1 shot any companion. I used to complain how Varric's rain of arrow ability did not do that much damage, and 1 day I accidentally had him rain arrows on ally, everyone fell too fast for me to even Pause. Observing the numbers, ally's damage are consistent across the board in most cases. Bioware doesn't care about balancing this because this game is meant to be a single player game, and will never get to multiplayer with PVP actions. Imagine PvP, it will be the wild wild west for who to pull the trigger first wins.

Here is what I thought as imbalance (that causes enough annoyance for me to care):

- Knock-lock is ridiculous for non-warrior class.

- Spell immunity for certain enemies. I understand if Arcane Horror is immune to spirit attack, but why street thug is immune to fire attack? They are untrained random poor folks who rob and steal for a living. YET, Templar is not immune to anything, in fact even have more weakness to magic (frost and spirit) comparing to street thugs (only frost). It makes little sense, and here we thought Templars are mage's bane.

- Enemy has such low cool down on abilities that they can constantly spam it. You will feel this when you see 2 rogues constantly stealth/backstab every 10 seconds, reducing your winning battle to a wipe in less than 30 seconds. They have too high HP to be killed instantly, and too hard to lock them down, they will just do a black flip and vanish, any spell casted on them will be lost (spell is on cooldown, yet rogue took no damage). Aveline is able to take 2 backstabs (when not all CDs are up), others maybe 1, and all can be over in 30 seconds. Any survivor can try to run, but ... somehow they still catch up, appearing out of no where and backstab. No amount of ability can counter backstab every 10 seconds.

[Lumikki]

I played game to end in normal difficulty, what was very easy. How ever, it's good way to see the hole story without any fustration to combat difficulties. There is only few fights in normal difficulty what are little bit harder, meaning you need to use some kind of tactics and not just nuke enemies to dead.

Now I have started to play in hard difficulty. So far I don't see much differences. Enemies are little bit stronger, so fight last little bit longer. I think the biggest difference between normal and hard is more knock backs. Knock back isn't so bad as long you know it's there. How ever, it means you need to keep distances with range characters. Meaning more running around and protecting your companions.

Problem with nightmare is that while FF does make it more realistic, the huge amount of HP what enemies has, makes it less realistic. So, nightmare is more like if player wants more challenge in combat. Bioware should have made FF as toggle in game options.

Modifié par Lumikki, 31 mars 2011 - 03:24 .