161 réponses à ce sujet

[xkg]

So there is simple answer - your friend was playing wrong kind of game.
There is already huge amount of games he would enjoy so we dont need to change RPG games so shooter players can enjoy them

Im not siting in shooter games forums shouting to put more RPG elements for me.

Modifié par xkg, 16 avril 2011 - 12:42 .

[Orian Tabris]

My sister - though she'd be great at designing a character, in terms of combat in DA:O if she tried - would always let her companions do all the fights for her. Unless she had to.  She's found it impossible to do that in DA2, which I think is good because combat is pretty much half of the gameplay. Maybe more.

It's no wonder she sometimes has trouble playing on casual mode.

[randName]

xkg wrote...


So there is simple answer - your friend was playing wrong kind of game.
There is already huge amount of games he would enjoy so we dont need to change RPG games so shooter players can enjoy them

Im not siting in shooter games forums shouting to put more RPG elements for me.

The thing is that some would gladly pay for DA2 just for the story, well at least for other BioWare games - so why not make one difficulty setting for all those that doesn't want the combat and gear mechanics? 

I see no wrong in it, and I'm happy CDPR decided to make casual so easy for tW2 that supposedly anyone can play it without any issues - and it's just there for those that want to engross themselves in the world and explore the other sides of the game.

DA2 did partly the same, and maybe it's all words from CDPR , but there is a point in doing so with the easiest difficulty setting - and then balance for good combat for Hard, and then simply making Normal and Nightmare good.

And leaving casual at a state were anyone can play it, and balance and extra work hardly is needed.

[Badger8126]

It's a misconception that DA:O is a rpg, it's a puzzle game and as soon as you solve the puzzle everything become dead easy to the point where you can solo the whole game on nightmare.
People who fail at the casual setting are like the people who are trying to force the pieces of the puzzle together by force.
There is one way of winning DA:O and you'd better learn to play in that way.

[AkiKishi]

This is true of any game someone is unfamiliar with. You should have seen my efforts when I first started to play on gamepad after being a PC gamer.... Not pretty.

Gaming is just like any other activity you have to practice to get good at it.

[mordarwarlock]

so, just because mentally challenged people can't read books, we have to make all books contain pictures and have a maximun of 10 pages?

this applies to DA:O and DA 2, they could fix what was wrong in the difficulty, make Casual even more casual and the overall game on that difficulty friendly to reta...I Mean people who found it too hard, not completely mutilate the core game, which is what they did

The thing is that some would gladly pay for DA2 just for the story,
well at least for other BioWare games - so why not make one difficulty
setting for all those that doesn't want the combat and gear mechanics?

and why can't bioware create a FPS with a great story, or a TPS to please these kind of fans?, why should they destroy a well done RPG in hopes of pleasing them?, they never wanted an RPG, they wanted a great story, and you don't necesarily need an RPG to tell a great plot, take a look at bioshock or Half life for example

as a fan of Story driven FPS's and RPG's in general I feel insulted that they have to come up with these excuses

Modifié par mordarwarlock, 16 avril 2011 - 02:45 .

[Boiny Bunny]

Roxlimn wrote...

randName:

Shrug. Combat on Hard went really fast for me. As I said, most of the tedium was in waiting for the spawns to materialize. I would hardly call it a "morass." I mean, some encounters are over in less than 10 seconds. It's not what I could really call a "grind."

As I said, if combats are not going fast enough for you, you probably shouldn't be playing on Hard. Optimized encounter speed on Hard requires a fair bit of adaptation, so my guess is that you're just slogging through stuff without really optimizing and that's why it's taking so long.

bEVEsthda:

Making a game that's suitable for people who are not long time fans of the genre is key to expanding the market and sustaining the genre in the long term. And yes, that means that it's not a crime for a game to be made so that children can play it.

I haven't played on Hard, but on Nightmare, in my opinion, many 'boss' or 'elite' type enemies have far too much HP and defense - it can take 5 - 10 minutes for a single battle sometimes.  I believe the Act 1 boss took me around 1 hour.

With respect to your second comment, you are correct, it is no crime on Bioware's part to make a game that is not really designed for their 'core' fans, but more for casual gamers to expand the market.  I think a lot of the dissapointment arises from the fact that the game in question is sequel to the title ultimately developed for core fans.  People expected DA2 to retain the 'spiritual successor to BG' type approach I would say - which obviously didn't happen.

[Sammyjb]

I'm just going to go out there and say it: Dragon Age: Origins was my first real RPG. I had played a lot of other video games, but DA:O was the first old school RPG I had ever heard of. So I booted up a Dalish Warden on Normal (How hard could it be?) and I proceeded to get my butt whooped when I went back to the ruins with Merrill. Over and over. The ogre battle was when I finally tuned it down to Easy, when it was much easier, but still some fights got me.


But I stuck through it. Now my default DAO mode is Hard which I am starting to think is too easy for me.

But DA 2 is much different.

I started DA 2 on Normal, because I wanted to get to the story and not spend an insane time on combat, but I still wanted a tactical experience.

I think I died 4 times in the whole game, which might be understandable for Normal. So for my Archer Rogue, I cranked it up to Nightmare, my first time on that difficulty. I am really having very little trouble with it. I hardly ever need to pause or switch characters.

Was DAO difficult at first for me? Yeah. But did I keep going? Yeah. I understood others might not have, but I did.

[randName]

mordarwarlock wrote...
and why can't bioware create a FPS with a great story, or a TPS to please these kind of fans?, why should they destroy a well done RPG in hopes of pleasing them?, they never wanted an RPG, they wanted a great story, and you don't necesarily need an RPG to tell a great plot, take a look at bioshock or Half life for example

as a fan of Story driven FPS's and RPG's in general I feel insulted that they have to come up with these excuses

You are reading it wrong - I'm simply saying that make ONE difficulty setting so easy everyone can breeze through - this will hardly break anything else at all in the game, as long as they carefully balance the others through playtesting.

And for any story driven game, FPS, cRPG etc. I would hold the same - for those that just want the story, why not have a super easy option? I for one would use it if I lose game time due to crashes, or bugs.

And you don't even need to balance it will, just take normal, add more health to the PC, and more damage - and then make the PC just faint instead of die, he will never really fail - it will be perfect for a few people, at a low expense production wise - and you would have more people playing through DA:O (I know several that stopped since they found it too hard, it's a bit comical for me, but there is it).

And you wouldn't cheapen the experience for the rest.

[randName]

Boiny Bunny wrote...
I haven't played on Hard, but on Nightmare, in my opinion, many 'boss' or 'elite' type enemies have far too much HP and defense - it can take 5 - 10 minutes for a single battle sometimes.  I believe the Act 1 boss took me around 1 hour.

With respect to your second comment, you are correct, it is no crime on Bioware's part to make a game that is not really designed for their 'core' fans, but more for casual gamers to expand the market.  I think a lot of the dissapointment arises from the fact that the game in question is sequel to the title ultimately developed for core fans.  People expected DA2 to retain the 'spiritual successor to BG' type approach I would say - which obviously didn't happen.

ACT 1 is hardest though, since you haven't gotten all the combo abilities - on Nightmare I couldn't break the tank of Friedrich, the character you have to kill for the mercenaries to enter Kirkwall.

It was partly due to it being a low single target DPS party (Bethany, 2 handed Warrior Hawke and Aveline).

But you really need to constantly use Combos, and sure once you have them the game gets easy, but yeah if you want to play it differently you are going to have a ton of problems with the HP beasts.


As for hard? If you are already playing it on NM Hard is simple, just take Normal, with enemy HP more like Nightmare (but less so), and Spawns are mixed - less reistance than Nightmare, more than Normal.

Without all the pesky effects of NM (one of the good things about NM), so arrows won't always interrupt mages, and esp. no FF.

If you can play it will on NM, Hard is really easy.

Just tiresome and boring.

Modifié par randName, 16 avril 2011 - 03:13 .

[jontepwn]

DA:O was a pretty challenging game. DA2 however is so easy, even on hard.

[Roxlimn]

Boiny Bunny:

I haven't played on Hard, but on Nightmare, in my opinion, many 'boss' or 'elite' type enemies have far too much HP and defense - it can take 5 - 10 minutes for a single battle sometimes. I believe the Act 1 boss took me around 1 hour.

I've played on Nightmare. There's a little more HP, friendly fire, and resistances, but the toughness feels only slightly more.

If you're taking 5 minutes for a battle, that's way too long. Suggest bumping it down to Hard. The demo told me that DA2 would be largely an Action RPG and I took it at its word. Maybe that's why I'm not having the meltdowns so many other gamers are having.

The Act 1 boss ought to take significantly less than an hour. Felt like 10 to 20 minutes on NM.

randName:

And you don't even need to balance it will, just take normal, add more health to the PC, and more damage - and then make the PC just faint instead of die, he will never really fail - it will be perfect for a few people, at a low expense production wise - and you would have more people playing through DA:O (I know several that stopped since they found it too hard, it's a bit comical for me, but there is it).

And you wouldn't cheapen the experience for the rest.

The no-death option was in effect for Prince of Persia. It did not seem very effective. For my part, I think Hard is where you ought to play the game. Nightmare's borked with elemental immunities and vulnerabilities being stretched too far, and Normal's, well, Normal.

You shouldn't die on Hard, but that's because this isn't DA:O. It's not the same game.

[Dragoonlordz]

DA2 is an 18 rated game, I know very few people above that age range who haven't played video games before which means they have to either be catering to the granny's or the kids from the gaming world of which when the game is 18+ the kids shouldn't even be playing it legally. If anything DA2 is harder because you have this 'waves' situation combined with HP bars that increase when you do on all mobs in the game even the weakest ones in it. The crux of the solution they came up with is they made your own characters more OP skill wise, you do more damage to make up for this. 

While in DAO you had set mob numbers for all but major battles/fights and the scaling worked much better, when you gained enough levels the weaker mobs began being replaced by 'new' mob types that were stronger than the ones you was killing, backed up by weaker mobs because would make no sense to cut them from the game just because you gained enough levels.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 16 avril 2011 - 03:44 .

[Volourn]

"It's a misconception that DA:O is a rpg, it's a puzzle game"

You have a ridiculous notion ofm what a 'puzzle' game is. Have you, per chance, played Tetris? THAT'S a puzzle game.

[Dragoonlordz]

Volourn wrote...

"It's a misconception that DA:O is a rpg, it's a puzzle game"

You have a ridiculous notion ofm what a 'puzzle' game is. Have you, per chance, played Tetris? THAT'S a puzzle game.

I have to for once (I am shocked that has happened) agree with Volo, DAO is an RPG plain and simple.

[DocDoomII]

Volourn wrote...

"It's a misconception that DA:O is a rpg, it's a puzzle game"

You have a ridiculous notion ofm what a 'puzzle' game is. Have you, per chance, played Tetris? THAT'S a puzzle game.

Maybe he meant that it's puzzling how could they create suche a... thing, with a predecessor like DA:O?

[billy the squid]

Flayling wrote...

Me personally? Dragon Age Origins was a brilliant game, but I'm a hardcore gamer. I could easily handle all the complex situations.

..... Now let's analyze my best friend's gaming style.  He is not video game savy.  He installed Dragon Age and absolutely loved the game.  But....

1. He kept dieing on casual mode over & over & over again.
2. He didnt' even know that you can have four party members.
3. He had no idea that you could equip new armor and weapons for your hero or companions
4. He never looted anything off corpses
5. He had no idea there was a "party camp".
6. He skipped through dialogue to get to the "action".

The list goes on and on. Sadly these types of gamers make up a majority of Bioware's consumers.

Before I saw my friend play Dragon Age Origins I thought Bioware was completely retarded in how they designed DA2. But after seeing my friend play Dragon Age Origins I understand why Bioware made DA2 the way they did.

Basically Bioware is catering to people who have no clue about video games and have no idea what an RPG is. Sad but true.......

Everything Mike Laidlaw or any of the other bioware employees say MAKES PERFECT sense when I compare their comments to how retarded my friend played Dragon Age Origins.

Food for thought.

So.... it was too difficult because they couldn't be bothered to read the instructions or pay attention in the tutorial? Wow, if this reasoning is correct and present in Bioware then all games should be able to be played by a 10 year old. 

I am becoming increasingly irritated by the belief that all concepts must be grasped with a fleeting glance otherwise people can't enjoy it. Why must everything be simplified to such an extent? Some concepts will, by their very nature be more complex or difficult to undestand, it does not make them bad or wrong, using a somewhat comedic analogy, simplification of such concepts is the equivilent of asking "Why does the moon orbit the Earth? Because it does."  
 
I understand that certain groups of gamers will not enjoy aspects of some games, that is their prerogative and I can empathise. I hate sports games, I can never control the players and I get lost, yes I know lost on a football pitch, that is how shockingly bad I am at games such as this. But, I don't expect the developer to change the game because I can't be bothered to work out how to play it. Even if they did, I don't find the concept particularly appealing, I'd rather go out and play football.

Which may have been the problem with DA2, removing all RPG aspects which certain groups will find tedious does not mean that group will buy it, particularly if they dislike the entire concept of RPGs to begin with. However, you are assured to have pi**ed off a proportion of the core market enough that there may be implications for any future products from the developer. 

The varying demands of different consumers is why different genres actually exist, and games haven't ,yet, devolved into a one size fits all mish mash of DA 2 and which Mr. Laidlaw seems not to have grasped, illustrated by comments regarding how certain games have RPG mechanics and people play them without knowing it (CoD Black ops) . This does not translate into a new audience! My brother cetainly doesn't play black ops for the customization and neither do I, I haven't gone through the single player missions once! its not the main selling point of the franchise, the online twitch fest is what gives Black ops staying power and the ability to play with numerous friends online.

If this has not been understood by properly by Bioware (that different types of consumers want inherently different experiences from games) then I'm not suprised that sales of DA 2 are falling faster than a blind roofer.

Modifié par billy the squid, 16 avril 2011 - 04:32 .

[Jitter]

mdugger12 wrote...

Teredan wrote...

It doesn't make sense, they should have instead implemented better tutorials?
I doubt your friend lacks the ability to learn? (And learning new mechanics can be made fun if done right)

I don't think it's about lacking the ability to learn, I think that casual gamers or even gamers that aren't hardcore RPG fans don't want to go through hours of tutorials before they can start enjoying a game. It's a hurdle that Bioware faced in trying to share the DA universe with more people. I don't see that as being wrong, it's something worth sharing with the world. Still, I totally understand how some fans are disappointed that DA 2 isn't quite the love letter to RPG fans that DA:O was.

That is why there is chess and checkers ... 

But in this case , Bioware said awww what the hell, just put chess on the checkers box .  

[Mecher3k]

Badger8126 wrote...

It's a misconception that DA:O is a rpg, it's a puzzle game

Ahhh, so what is Portal 1& and soon to be 2 then?

MMOFPS?


And to anyone who found DA:O too difficult even on casual, go play another game. Simple as that, DA:O was not meant for you. But Farmvile was.

Modifié par Mecher3k, 16 avril 2011 - 05:32 .

[randName]

Roxlimn wrote...

randName worte
And you don't even need to balance it will, just take normal, add more health to the PC, and more damage - and then make the PC just faint instead of die, he will never really fail - it will be perfect for a few people, at a low expense production wise - and you would have more people playing through DA:O (I know several that stopped since they found it too hard, it's a bit comical for me, but there is it).

And you wouldn't cheapen the experience for the rest.

The no-death option was in effect for Prince of Persia. It did not seem very effective. For my part, I think Hard is where you ought to play the game. Nightmare's borked with elemental immunities and vulnerabilities being stretched too far, and Normal's, well, Normal.

You shouldn't die on Hard, but that's because this isn't DA:O. It's not the same game.

That comment of mine you quoted was only about a theoretical causal. super easy, mode - nothing at all about hard or even normal modes of difficulty. Nor did I talk about DA2, but again a potenial casual mode that could be used in games lika DA:O or DA2, and in this case we talked about poeple finding DA:O too hard, even on casual, and not DA2.





That said.

And neither Hard or NM are rewarding or fun for me in DA2 (nor are normal and casual as there lies no challange or reward at all here), so dunno what we should play on ~ my last 2 playthroughs were partly with modded difficulties, one took the Hard difficulty and added health from NM (but not FF and effects) the other was a NM modded difficulty that thus kept the hardcoded FF and effects, but lowered the health to Hard difficulty settings, and enemy resistance was lowered as well.

These modded, an the vanilla were all playable, but all with gripes and flaws - mostly just how the battles are actually designed, so modding health doesn't really change enough.

[randName]

Mecher3k wrote...

And to anyone who found DA:O too difficult even on casual, go play another game. Simple as that, DA:O was not meant for you. But Farmvile was.

We are talking about friends and family playing it on casual and struggeling, not so much about we having issues.

Personally I find that both DA:O and DA2 gets easy once you solve the economic puzzle of healing, or DA:O and DA2 on NM were troublesome for me until the gold that came in started covering for health potions, or I had enough healing from the mages.

At one point in DA:O I was even struggling on the Hard difficulty due to my party simply running out of potions, this was during my first run of DA:O.

And generally many cRPGs have a slippery slope of difficulty, or as long as you are struggling just to make ends meet with potions and basic items it will be hard, because you are not updating the rest, as in gear and special items, fast enough. Once you go over the hill, it gets easier and easier as you are saving more and more gold for finer and finer items, futher helping you along.

So once it gets hard, it gets really hard, and once it gets easy, it gets really easy.


That was the reason I promoted free/telent based healing potions on the casual setting, getting rid of the economical problem.



EDIT: 
And if Bio. would find a good balance, they could keep getting the new people they want, and serve the old players what they crave as well - currently it goes to and from, and for me DA2 was one of the more boring games combat wise I've played in some time, and in part I blame it on that they balanced it against novices, without giving time to properly playtest Hard or NM.

The problem with the slipperyslope is that a difficulty setting you easily breeze past can become a terror for someone else, for while your party got gear of standard or higher quality, potions and healing galore, and you are already saving up for that +35% critical damage dagger, the struggling novice not only doesn't really grasp the importance of looting until it's starting to get too late, and his party has to make do with ramshackle gear, bad builds, and no poitions and healing, and even if he tries he gets sucked down.

Now I suspect that DA2 was rather easy for everyone on casual, and this was more to do with DA:O.

Modifié par randName, 16 avril 2011 - 07:03 .

[Paper420]

Rand, you need to make a thread and post from 'at one point...' down

[randName]

Filament wrote...

Origins was probably too difficult on
Normal and too easy on Nightmare. I think DA2 does it better, made
Normal easier and Nightmare harder.

DA:O was too easy on NM yes, and I sometimes give it too much credit, but then it did launch with the toolset, and it was easy to get your hands on a number of gamebalancing mods that made it a lot harder.

And from what I heard from people that I know it was rough for them on Normal, can't say much for it myself - for while I'm pretty much worthless with many things in life, at least the neard in me can boast that I've made solo runs through BG2 and Ironman runs through JA2 Wildfire and FO1 and FO2, so normally games like DA2 aren't a problem.
That line never worked well with any girls though ~ 

Paper420 wrote...

Rand, you need to make a thread and post from 'at one point...' down

Heh, it should be common knowlage already I think - and since it has more to do with DA:O and game design in general I don't see a big need for it. but thanks ~

Modifié par randName, 16 avril 2011 - 07:09 .

[Kastagir]

Keep in mind that DA:O was much more difficult before it was patched. In 1.0 it wasn't uncommon to have a dozen wolves queued up (literally) to overwhelm your characters as soon as their health dropped below 50%. One of the early patches made the game considerably easier, across all difficulty settings. To call the game in its current state (i.e. DA:O, 1.02a/1.04) too difficult simply shows how steeply DA2 has veered into the realm of "greater accessibility."