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[Ingulfthemad]

Bioware????

              Dragonage:Origins and Awakening ..On Normal Fun ..on Hard Fun!!  Dragonage 2 on Normal as mage was fun..Now playing a Melee Rogue on Hard ( I like a challange but this is ridiculous).. up to Arishok fight i only had to lower it back to Normal once, that was against the Ancient Rock Wraith ..even on normal , my Melee rogue lasted seconds.. luckily had a bow .. so swapped between bow and the went in a meleed when it went to the centre..been some hard fights but i worked out how to do them! Now im at the Arshishok fight, and i want to do the Isabel romance so cant let him take her.. so its the duel;.. on hard forget it.. on Normal ermmm forget it!! u
you cant go  toe to toe.. none of the Stealth or evades work , stamina last like 2 hits .. you end up running around in circles for ages and the a slip up with the hit and run tactics and your dead.. so think the game will now end up on the what where they thinking pile.. cos no way am i lowering it to Casual, i`m thinking oki this fight was hard as a mage on normal (atleast u could do damage at a distance u cant go near him ,does to much damage and just kepps knocking u to the ground and u never get the chance to run off).. and im thinking if it this bad , what the High Dragon fight going to be Like?

I think that ist for me.. really wanted to know what happened to my rogue after he went into  the mirror with Morrigan.( is 3 going to be the same?). Dragonage:origins was better of the 2.(better stiory and the chats where fun, you got know your chars.. shme it was dumbed down abit in Awakenings). Two main gripes with 2 ..healings a joke.. and whats the point of having the Black Emporium and other expensive items when you never have enough gold to buy anything..as u spend it on healing, elf,Mana and stamina potions and runes .. plus the few Skill/stat upgrade items.

So unless i missing something big time on this fight???  thats it for me.. Have fun. ( Once more..Final time into the breach my friends..but not holding out much hope..20 mins of running in circles and the bl**dy guy heals himself aswell).

Steve (Steven the Mage/ Enstev the Rogue ...Champions)...(Nevets the Rogue/Venste the Mage..Wardens)

[Beerfish]

No need to duel the Arishok at all. Tell him you won't fight him and take out the whole qunari group which is far easier than the duel.

[aethernox]

This game is so much better than DA:O. I mean, christ. The companions are tons deeper, and you can actually get to know them even if you aren't nice to them/trying to get into their pants. Plus, class balance has been absurdly improved.

[Wye]

aethernox wrote...

This game is so much better than DA:O. I mean, christ. The companions are tons deeper, and you can actually get to know them even if you aren't nice to them/trying to get into their pants. Plus, class balance has been absurdly improved.

Tbh, I don't understand the hatred either. It's still a good game.

[sassperella]

Beerfish wrote...

No need to duel the Arishok at all. Tell him you won't fight him and take out the whole qunari group which is far easier than the duel.

^ This, just decline the duel. YOu then get to fight them all with your entire group.

[Ingulfthemad]

Oh thanks ... did attempt it on Casual.. down he went after the Benny Hill sequence .. but will decline the Duel see what happens..I dont dislike the game, just prefer the original.. would not be playing it a 2nd time if did not .. just seems the Hard level is more like extremely hard on some fights and not even able to defeat him on normal was annoyiong .. seems you need the perfect set-up to do it..mines just does not do the damge required and then able to get away..and him then healing when u have just spent 5+ minutes getting him down to 75% with loads of pots used , just not fun...with evade being interrupt and stealth not working at all..*shrug* ..back i go ..

[Darqion]

His skills are rather obvious as is his pattern.

I beat him on nightmare with my rogue... and ye walking around dodging him is needed untill he dashes and you can mark/assassinate him. I had a couple of stun grenades with me that would let me land a proper combo on him before he proceeded to kick my ass. In the end it was only a couple of minutes but his healing does seem quite random..

My first few attempts i saw him heal like 7 times and in my final one he only drank one potion

[upsettingshorts]

Arishok is defeatable on Nightmare. Like most bosses the Arishok has a trick to him and it's not a laughable cakewalk like the Loghain duel.

If he gets around 50% health (usually around 55%) he will use a potion to heal. If you drop him from 55% to 49% he will stop using potions, so save your biggest burst damage for then. The rest of the time, stay out of the way of his hits and only get hits in when it's safe.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 17 avril 2011 - 12:39 .

[Ingulfthemad]

Thanks all.. the" no I not dueling you" option was my sort of fight a nice rude hand gesture would of gone nice with that one ..lol ..yikes knightmare level.. ill pass on that 4-6 hours playing with set-up on normal and hard was enough ...."When in doubt , bring some friends"

[Apathy1989]

Ingulfthemad wrote...

Thanks all.. the" no I not dueling you" option was my sort of fight a nice rude hand gesture would of gone nice with that one ..lol ..yikes knightmare level.. ill pass on that 4-6 hours playing with set-up on normal and hard was enough ...."When in doubt , bring some friends"

Yeah its not especially clear. First few playthroughts I always dualled because I thought if you didn't, you lost isabela. 

On topic of game not being fun, I am running through origins on nightmare again atm. Seems pathetically easy after the hard work DA2 puts you through lol.

Also got alistair to sleep with isabela just for the lulz later in DA2.

[Shina777]

aethernox wrote...

This game is so much better than DA:O. I mean, christ. The companions are tons deeper, and you can actually get to know them even if you aren't nice to them/trying to get into their pants. Plus, class balance has been absurdly improved.

Not comparable. you are comparing a 85-100 hours + baldur's gate like RPG game with a real tactical view and rather positive if not gloryfying press reviews and a great potential to be replayed.
to a 50 hours brutal action rpg/ Hack'n Slasher with tons of technical and gameplay issues that was torn appart and denied by press and most of BG and DA:O players.

note that I've played all BG 1+2+ext, MWN1 +ext, mass EFFECT 1+2, DAO I am a big Bioware fan, this just makes it harder. 
Shame really because despite the fights Graphics are really nice and caracters are cool enough but nothing matches Orghen hitting on wynne dialogs.
I do hate the items being all called Belt /or ring having cheap monochrome item logos.

Modifié par Shina777, 19 avril 2011 - 12:04 .

[akayasha]

aethernox wrote...

This game is so much better than DA:O. I mean, christ. The companions are tons deeper, and you can actually get to know them even if you aren't nice to them/trying to get into their pants. Plus, class balance has been absurdly improved.

I don't think your companions are deeper at all honestly. You didn't have to try to get into their pants in Origins either you just had to speak to them. It wouldn't really make too much sense to randomly get to know someone without some sort of dialogue. In Dragon Age 2, I felt like in order to not bluntly disagree with Anders you had to choose some bisexual dialogues at some choices; I didn't like that. For class balance, everything is just stronger in many ways.

[Amioran]

Shina777 wrote...
Not comparable. you are comparing a 85-100 hours + baldur's gate like RPG game with a real tactical view and rather positive if not gloryfying press reviews and a great potential to be replayed.

That had a gamplay so easy that the only thing you had to do was just keeping the first line intact and everything else didn't minimally matter (and maintaing the first line was a non-issue since you had aggro abilities without swarms).

You could create an artificial nightmare difficulty with three/fourth time the vanilla nightmare difficulty and still there was neither an hint of challenge just for the motive mentioned.

BG in gameplay was much more similar to DA2 than DAO. Same can be said about ToEE or either Ultima.

Shina777 wrote...
to a 50 hours brutal action rpg/ Hack'n Slasher with tons of technical and gameplay issues that was torn appart and denied by press and most of BG and DA:O players.

A) Maybe you should stop playing in Casual difficulty
There were many more gameplay issues in DAO than DA2. One I already mentioned (that was huge as a mountain), another one is that the back lines had the same durability of the first lines (even more in some cases) and so on. Sorry, but - as it seems is usually the case for DA2 detractors - you have no idea of what you are talking about.
C) It is torn apart by bad mouth word of people that know absolutely nothing of what they speak about (as you) and still insist they know something. The press actually spoke very well of it and many either consider it much better than DAO in many aspects.

Shina777 wrote...
note that I've played all BG 1+2+ext

Maybe you should play them a little more if you really think that DAO had a gameplay even remotely simiiar to those. Try to remember: did Edwin ever run in circles trying to avoid damage as a mage in DA2? Did it ever happen in DAO?

Modifié par Amioran, 19 avril 2011 - 04:12 .

[IN1]

Think of DA2 as a spiritual successor to IWD/IWD2, not to BG/BG2. Mechanics and challenge-wise, it's infinitely superior to DA:O.

Also, DA:O was absolutely the buggiest game I've ever played, DA2 is much much much better in this respect. I can back my statement up with facts, but I'm not sure you are interested in facts.

I also like the plot more than that DA:O save-the-world generic pile of crap DA:O had its merits, though, no doubt.

[Nasabe]

on to Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dales, Planescape Torment games and their likeness with DAO or DA2?

nothing but being able to pause the game at will.

Remember that those games do not have any aggro system. You tanked by crowd control, debuffs, and damage transfers like neverwinter nine.

A completely different combat mechanic. Granted DAO has some dice rolls to calculate certain stuff, DA2 even relies less on dice rolls. Is that a bad thing? In my opinion no. Kudos to Bioware for trying something different. Although the combat system isnt nearly fleshed out like D&D(baldur's gate etc.). But D&D system is ages old compared to Dragon Age's so thats somewhat acceptable.

But.. and a big "but" at that, what is not acceptable is the classes are so limited. I mean sure people try different things with certain builds etc. but do compare with the sheer amount of multiclassing, prestige classes combos in D&D. Dragon Age system is very underwhelmed in that department.

Say, if there was an ability to make your Intelligence score determine your defense instead of Dexterity (Cunning in DA2) . That single talent could grant so many possibilites for people to build their characters. That is just a single example, D&D system is full of those kind of possibilities and it seems Dragon Age wants to limit the way you can play more and more with every installment. If this was a multiplayer game and balance issues were a big concern I could somewhat understand but it's not. I truly miss the possibilites in those oldschool rpgs.

Also, I miss having an 3 Intelligence barbarian and not being able to complete a sentence in Baldur's Gate 2 dialogue interactions. Intelligence, Perception etc. mattered not only in combat but in every aspect of the game. Granted these are design choices and Dragon Age 2 is fun in its own way. But I personally don't like where the system is going.

[IN1]

Are you seriously trying to compare D&D to DA as a rule system? Now, that's just absurd, and I hope you understand why (the sheer professional level of the designers, with all due respect to Georg Zoeller + the pedigree, first and foremost).

[Nasabe]

IN1 wrote...

Are you seriously trying to compare D&D to DA as a rule system? Now, that's just absurd, and I hope you understand why (the sheer professional level of the designers, with all due respect to Georg Zoeller + the pedigree, first and foremost).

You have missed the point

I'm pointing out why D&D and DA cannot be compared as a rule system. Not even Icewind Dale.. Then pointing out what I like about D&D and what could be implemented in DA system.

DA system isn't as flexible as D&D when it comes to building characters and that is a fact. I like that part of the D&D and wish DAO would head that way in terms of character builds and not in DA2's way. And that is an opinion.

Edit: Maybe IN1's post wasn't directed at me, because if it does it doesn't make any sense. In that case I apologize.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 05:00 .

[IN1]

I see. All right, it's hard to disagree when you formulate your point in this way.

[Roxlimn]

Nasabe:

No videogame can be as flexible as D&D because in D&D, your DM can just make stuff up. Like literally, put a Jedi in your game if you all want it to happen. Encounter design in D&D is meant to be adjusted on the fly by an intelligent arbiter. That is why it can be as flexible as it is. No game can simulate that kind of flexibility. At some point it has to either sacrifice balance or scope. Each game's combat design is a compromise between the two.

[Nasabe]

Roxlimn wrote...

Nasabe:

No videogame can be as flexible as D&D because in D&D, your DM can just make stuff up. Like literally, put a Jedi in your game if you all want it to happen. Encounter design in D&D is meant to be adjusted on the fly by an intelligent arbiter. That is why it can be as flexible as it is. No game can simulate that kind of flexibility. At some point it has to either sacrifice balance or scope. Each game's combat design is a compromise between the two.

True to a certain extend. If the game was multiplayer I can see how balance issues could be priority and these limitations can be justified. But it's not.

Say, being able to use Intelligence as a defense modifier instead of Cunning via a Prestige class could provide some interesting build abilities. Also, maybe allow Warriors to use Dexterity for one-handers for defense score without the use of a shield via an ability so they can rely on criticals rather than brute damage and have some other options.. Given these are just stuff I made up atm. and can cause problems but that's not the point. I am not saying every game has to give us options like Ranger/Mage/Rogue classes. But a few unorthodox options being viable won't hurt in a single-player game. After all allowing players to get creative is something that rpgs have inherently, the other game-styles don't.

Saying its a videogame and cannot be as flexible as table-top is true, but it just sounds like an easy way out imo. Look at Baldur's Gate, deus ex, even DAO (Arcane warrior swapping magic for strength). Simple is good I agree, but the way "simple" is implemented atm in DA2 seems very limiting.

Take a look at some unorthodox build suggestions, they require very specific attribute allocations with very specific items to be viable. I would like to see the developers allow players to do those without making them backstabbing with a shield, or relying on some glitch. Those builds are very creative ideas but I feel DA2 is punishing those creative players more than DAO ever did. Not even mentioning Baldur's Gate or other D&D video-games.

say if D&D is 10 at flexibility scale and DAO is 5.. DA2 seems to go towards 3.. I would like it to go towards 7. Nonetheless I've completed the game more than 3 times and enjoyed it thoroughly, but it's not what it could be. It's not even close.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 07:06 .

[Roxlimn]

Nasabe:

It's interesting that you bring up DAO in this discussion, because it's a case in point. Mage interpretation in DAO is more flexible. It's also broken, and yes, it is an issue, even in a single player game. The issue of balance in a single player game isn't balance between the characters of different players - it's the balance of characters controlled by the same player.

In DAO, the Mage was so powerful that it upset both class balance and encounter design. SotC cleaned out entire encounters, rendering the entire tactical game moot for far too many encounters. It also meant that you wanted to have as many Mages as were viable in the party, to boost firepower as much as possible. In one setup, I had three mages and one Rogue. Alistair was completely out, and I largely only benefited from omitting Warrior in my party. If it weren't for traps, I'd have cut out the Rogue, too.

Would it make sense to you to design Fireball so that it did a gazillion damage, and every other spell doing 1? Single player right? No need for balance? Of course not. We understand that we want all spell choices to be viable alternatives to each other, each no more powerful than the other, ideally.

The same is true for class and character choice. We want them all to be more or less equivalent so that they are all viable choices for the player to take.

DA2's tighter combat design and slicker gameplay is only possible because the designers only had to test out a limited number of options and possibilities. If they have to design for greater and greater diverse options, encounter design becomes correspondingly poorer.

I've DM'd for a considerable time, and I have to tell you that tweaking encounters for PC parties is an absolute must. Parties can steamroll one encounter and stall the next if you're not careful. It's almost impossible to create a module with encounters that will work perfectly out of the box for every single group.

If you narrow the choices, encounter design can be much more suitable to the choices at hand.

[Nasabe]

So instead of fixing something that's broken, just remove it? seems the easy way out again.

I fail to see how making one spell exceptionally overpowered and other exceptionally weak corresponds to my post. And to say that DA2 doesn't have any balance issues because its more restricted and focused is plain wrong. Force mage, confusion etc. are plain broken.

If one chooses to play only because it is the optimal way to build a party, then it is his decision. Since it is not multiplayer you are not spoiling somebody else's day. Powerplay can be done in DAO yes, but ultimately it is an option you have. You still have the option bring Alistair and not be ridiculously overpowered no? In DA2 make a Force Mage/Spirit Healer and run with Aveline/Anders/Merill then. If one wants to exploit and powerplay, he can certainly do so. If one feels obliged to powerplay just because it is the most powerful party he can have.. Well I don't know what to say really other than good for him/her.

Roxlimn wrote...

If you narrow the choices, encounter design can be much more suitable to the choices at hand.

Maybe that's the main issue we don't agree on. Unfortunately I don't think we can ever either. It is a design choice at the end of the day. I do not like it.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 08:35 .

[Roxlimn]

Nasabe:

I fail to see how making one spell exceptionally overpowered and other exceptionally weak corresponds to my post. And to say that DA2 doesn't have any balance issues because its more restricted and focused is plain wrong. Force mage, confusion etc. are plain broken.

I didn't say that it didn't have balance issues. I said that balance issues are important. Actually, I don't get what's broken about Force Mage and Confusion. Those are powerful effects, but they're competitive with other trees and spells, respectively.

If one chooses to play only because it is the optimal way to build a party, then it is his decision. Since it is not multiplayer you are not spoiling somebody else's day. Powerplay can be done in DAO yes, but ultimately it is an option you have. You still have the option bring Alistair and not be ridiculously overpowered no? In DA2 make a Force Mage/Spirit Healer and run with Aveline/Anders/Merill then. If one wants to exploit and powerplay, he can certainly do so. If one feels obliged to powerplay just because it is the most powerful party he can have.. Well I don't know what to say really other than good for him/her.

An option so powerful that it obviates the entire game is essentially a nonexistent option, since choosing that option means that you're not really playing the game. This is especially dangerous because people who inadvertently choose super-powerful or super-weak options can get the wrong idea about gameplay when encounters are designed around weaker or more powerful options.

Maybe that's the main issue we don't agree on. Unfortunately I don't think we can ever either. It is a design choice at the end of the day. I do not like it.

I don't see how you can disagree with that. You can like a design where balance is given lower priority than breadth of options, or a design where balance is more important than breadth of design. That's your preference. However, it is a given that given the same resources, a game with less options can be tested more and balanced to have better gameplay than a game with less options.

[mr_afk]

Just to join in this fun little discussion, let me start by saying that I think there's pretty valid points to each side.

I recently did a play-through of neverwinter nights 2 and immensely enjoyed the huge possibilities that were available when building a character (heaps of base classes with the potential for cross-classing and then prestige classes....what more do you need?).
In the nwn2 discussions about builds etc. there were hundreds of different ideas out there, giving an element of discovery, of pioneering ideas, and of been unique. In DA2 the limitations to one race, three classes and several trees within each class means that most of the build discussions are on the few 'best' builds which are possible, with only slight tweaks in terms of variation between players (as they are playing on nightmare and can't get away with less effective builds unless they are truly masochistic).
This limits the element of discovery solely to discovering what the mechanics are/which are bugged and possible party tactics (party tactics are a HUGE improvement over the older D&D games). And i'm not criticizing these boards, god knows how addicted I am to them, but there just isn't as many experimental builds out there as there could be, which makes me sad. IN1's do amuse me however.
And so I agree with Nasabe in that the element of having broadened choices can make a game even more amazing and give it great replay value.

On the other hand I agree with Roxlimn's point about balancing issues been very important - one of the more essential components really. In Origins, playing a late-game mage (especially in awakening) became unplayable due to how ridiculously overpowered it was, even on nightmare. This effectively ruins the whole mage class as the essential drive in making and discussing builds to find the most powerful one is lost (unless you enjoy just doing that whole roleplaying thing).

So, based on that, I think that what works is having lots of choices which are all reasonably balanced, yet allowing the potential for what may be considered to be 'overpowered' meta-gaming builds to be developed. This means that the sense of possibilities been endless is there yet the gameplay does not suffer (e.g. a less effective build can still survive, and a metagaming build will still need to do lots of work to reach that 'overpowered' stage).

In Origins, the problem was that there weren't enough choices and it was much too easy for a mage to become too powerful too fast. In DAII they fixed most of those balancing issues (making all three classes very enjoyable to play) but i find that it lacks some of the wide range of build choices that can make a game truly amazing.
So while I would disagree with anyone saying that DAII is not fun, I would have to suggest that if possible (and if they could maintain balancing issues), more choices in terms of possible builds would be a great step up, both in terms of enjoyment and replayability. 

Haha this is what happens when I feel in a spiel-ly mood. Lots of words come out. Blehh

Modifié par mr_afk, 20 avril 2011 - 07:33 .