232 réponses à ce sujet

[SkittlesKat96]

It has more replay value than some games...for an Rpg it has a pretty mediocre replay level though I agree.

Particularly the amount of combat in the game...I never thought so much combat would get irritating.

ME 2 was also a little bit too much on the combat side, but at least the combat in ME 2 is really fun (DA 2's combat is fun but when you have to do it so much you get bored of it, also it looks way too fast and unrealistic and weird. It'd be cool if Bioware could change that and make it a bit slower, not as slow as DA:O though.)

That is all I have to say on this.

[Realmzmaster]

Let me expound a little bit on choice in DAO and by extension DA2. When you rescue Anora you are given the choice to either surrender or fight. If you choose to fight Anora should stand a chance of getting killed or seriously wounded to the point she is of no use politically to the Warden. That would have made the Landsmeet more difficult. So the choice to fight or not becomes more critical.

I also agree with Ethereal Writer Redux Best Served Cold could have been a lot better. In fact it did not have to happen at all. Hawke should have been given the option to kill Grace and the others. If you kill Grace no Best Served Cold quest. If Grace survives then you get a quest like Best Served Cold but with a little more thought and better execution.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 20 novembre 2011 - 03:00 .

[Cell1e]

Magnus_The_Red wrote...

I have completed this game twice, once siding with the mages and the other with the templars. And now no matter how many times I try I just can't bring myself to complete it again. Most of the time I get past act 1, get bored and then give up.
Unlike its predecessor DA2 has little to no variations in its quests and overall story. In Origins sure certain things had to have happen but at least they often had different routes and/or outcomes. But in DA2 this is not the case. No matter what you say and do almost everything has the exact same outcome.

I know DA2 tried to tell a different kind of story from Origins but it just didn't work for me.
While Origins did not have the most originality, it did it well and so was a great game overall. DA2 meanwhile tried to do something new but it just fell flat and so overall it turned out to be a very mediocre game with almost no replay value.

Yes me too. I certainly wanted to love DA2 but the changes in dialogue system, the sameness of all the areas and the less than immersive romance options on top of many other aspects which were less lovingly crafted than in the first game just meant that I couldnt go back time after time after my first couple of playthroughs.

Still I think it a better game than most out there but just not as good as I hoped or expected from Bioware.Nowhere near as mind blowing as I found DAO. That game rocked!

[puppy maclove]

Cell1e wrote...

Magnus_The_Red wrote...

I have completed this game twice, once siding with the mages and the other with the templars. And now no matter how many times I try I just can't bring myself to complete it again. Most of the time I get past act 1, get bored and then give up.
Unlike its predecessor DA2 has little to no variations in its quests and overall story. In Origins sure certain things had to have happen but at least they often had different routes and/or outcomes. But in DA2 this is not the case. No matter what you say and do almost everything has the exact same outcome.

I know DA2 tried to tell a different kind of story from Origins but it just didn't work for me.
While Origins did not have the most originality, it did it well and so was a great game overall. DA2 meanwhile tried to do something new but it just fell flat and so overall it turned out to be a very mediocre game with almost no replay value.

Yes me too. I certainly wanted to love DA2 but the changes in dialogue system, the sameness of all the areas and the less than immersive romance options on top of many other aspects which were less lovingly crafted than in the first game just meant that I couldnt go back time after time after my first couple of playthroughs.

Still I think it a better game than most out there but just not as good as I hoped or expected from Bioware.Nowhere near as mind blowing as I found DAO. That game rocked!

Completely AGREE!!!!!

[furryrage59]

Most dissapointing game i have ever laid witness to.

Staggered by just how bad it is, but living in hope that they don't trash the franchise and make another junk sequel.

[Nyeppy]

furryrage59 wrote...

Most dissapointing game i have ever laid witness to.

Staggered by just how bad it is, but living in hope that they don't trash the franchise and make another junk sequel.

I won't say its the most disappointing game ever, but it's certainly the worst I ever bought.

[GavrielKay]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Let me expound a little bit on choice in DAO and by extension DA2. When you rescue Anora you are given the choice to either surrender or fight. If you choose to fight Anora should stand a chance of getting killed or seriously wounded to the point she is of no use politically to the Warden. That would have made the Landsmeet more difficult. So the choice to fight or not becomes more critical.

I also agree with Ethereal Writer Redux Best Served Cold could have been a lot better. In fact it did not have to happen at all. Hawke should have been given the option to kill Grace and the others. If you kill Grace no Best Served Cold quest. If Grace survives then you get a quest like Best Served Cold but with a little more thought and better execution.

Sure, I agree they could have put in even MORE choice than DA:O had.  There were any number of quests that could have and probably should have had more possible outcomes that affected the rest of the game.  I would have liked that even better than what I was suggesting.  My thought was though, that even within their "framed narrative" limitation where they clearly had a railroad path in mind that you were going to play no matter what - the options along the way could still have been there. 

You should have been able to choose to fight and lose, to attack and fail, to opt out of a quest and find out someone else did it.  There are many ways to move a story along that don't require everyone to play basically the same ineffectual Hawke.

Or, even better, they could have never gone down the "framed narrative" path and made me feel like I was just acting out a script rather than playing a game.  I don't mind developers trying new things and pushing boundaries, but I hope they mark this down as a failed experiment.  Starting at the end with Varric and Cassandra just throws it in your face - the story is already set in stone.

[TEWR]

GavrielKay wrote...

Sure, I agree they could have put in even MORE choice than DA:O had.  There were any number of quests that could have and probably should have had more possible outcomes that affected the rest of the game.  I would have liked that even better than what I was suggesting.  My thought was though, that even within their "framed narrative" limitation where they clearly had a railroad path in mind that you were going to play no matter what - the options along the way could still have been there. 

You should have been able to choose to fight and lose, to attack and fail, to opt out of a quest and find out someone else did it.  There are many ways to move a story along that don't require everyone to play basically the same ineffectual Hawke.

Or, even better, they could have never gone down the "framed narrative" path and made me feel like I was just acting out a script rather than playing a game.  I don't mind developers trying new things and pushing boundaries, but I hope they mark this down as a failed experiment.  Starting at the end with Varric and Cassandra just throws it in your face - the story is already set in stone.

I disagree. Varric and Cassandra set very little about the story of Hawke in stone. What the player knows for certain is that Hawke is gone from the scene, that he was named Champion, and that he had an impact on the current events that are now happening.

The first one affects nothing about the story that Varric will tell. The second is something we knew for months prior to DAII's release, and the game gives us different methods of being named Champion. The third isn't something definite, as it would be up to the player to determine what the impact was.

While Bioware failed to utilize the framed narrative in a way that would work for an RPG, Varric and Cassandra limited nothing.

Bioware did.

[GavrielKay]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
I disagree. Varric and Cassandra set very little about the story of Hawke in stone. What the player knows for certain is that Hawke is gone from the scene, that he was named Champion, and that he had an impact on the current events that are now happening.

So you know already that there will be a war and the Champion and Varric have both survived the main game.  You know the war involves the Templars, and thus probably the mages.

This is already more than you knew starting DA:O.

Then there's the parts where you're just acting out Varric's fabricating a story...  in the very beginning and then that scene during Varric's personal quest.

I think the framed narrative was a bad choice, and then on top of that they didn't handle it very well.

[Always Alice]

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I'd rather replay this game than DAO. Every time I go through the first game I always dread going through the Deep Roads or the Fade.

[Realmzmaster]

GavrielKay wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
I disagree. Varric and Cassandra set very little about the story of Hawke in stone. What the player knows for certain is that Hawke is gone from the scene, that he was named Champion, and that he had an impact on the current events that are now happening.

So you know already that there will be a war and the Champion and Varric have both survived the main game.  You know the war involves the Templars, and thus probably the mages.

This is already more than you knew starting DA:O.

Then there's the parts where you're just acting out Varric's fabricating a story...  in the very beginning and then that scene during Varric's personal quest.

I think the framed narrative was a bad choice, and then on top of that they didn't handle it very well.

Anytime someone is describing the past certain events are going to be known. What is unknown is how it got to that point and what happen along the way. There are only two parts Hawke is acting out a fabrication (as you point out) by Varric at the beginning and when describing his encounter with his mad brother.  Cassandra calls him on both of them.
So you know its a fabrication. It is in keeping with Varric's character. He is a storyteller that likes to embellish his tales or lie about parts he does not wish to reveal.

You did not like the framed narrative.I did. I can only assume that you like the story to unfold from the beginning to the end. I can have my stories occur in any direction even starting in the middle as long as the beginning and end are covered.

[Realmzmaster]

Always Alice wrote...

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I'd rather replay this game than DAO. Every time I go through the first game I always dread going through the Deep Roads or the Fade.

You enjoy playing DA2 more than DAO. There is nothing wrong with that. The purpose of a game is to have fun. So enjoy.

[maxernst]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

GavrielKay wrote...

Sure, I agree they could have put in even MORE choice than DA:O had.  There were any number of quests that could have and probably should have had more possible outcomes that affected the rest of the game.  I would have liked that even better than what I was suggesting.  My thought was though, that even within their "framed narrative" limitation where they clearly had a railroad path in mind that you were going to play no matter what - the options along the way could still have been there. 

You should have been able to choose to fight and lose, to attack and fail, to opt out of a quest and find out someone else did it.  There are many ways to move a story along that don't require everyone to play basically the same ineffectual Hawke.

Or, even better, they could have never gone down the "framed narrative" path and made me feel like I was just acting out a script rather than playing a game.  I don't mind developers trying new things and pushing boundaries, but I hope they mark this down as a failed experiment.  Starting at the end with Varric and Cassandra just throws it in your face - the story is already set in stone.

I disagree. Varric and Cassandra set very little about the story of Hawke in stone. What the player knows for certain is that Hawke is gone from the scene, that he was named Champion, and that he had an impact on the current events that are now happening.

The first one affects nothing about the story that Varric will tell. The second is something we knew for months prior to DAII's release, and the game gives us different methods of being named Champion. The third isn't something definite, as it would be up to the player to determine what the impact was.

While Bioware failed to utilize the framed narrative in a way that would work for an RPG, Varric and Cassandra limited nothing.

Bioware did.

I don't agree.  If the end game choice of Templars vs Mages had any real consequences to the fate of Kirkwall, Cassandra would certainly have viewed Hawke differently depending on the side he chose....and the game can't know your intentions from the start.  So I do think the framed narrative boxed them in.

On topic, there's two entirely different kinds of replay value.  From a story point of view, DA2 has much less replay value than DA:O because it allows fewer branches.  DA2's replay value depends on enjoying the combat and wanting to try out the different companion combinations and skill trees.  If you liked the combat it'll have replay value.

Modifié par maxernst, 21 novembre 2011 - 05:54 .

[Sylvianus]

Battlefield ( story even worse than... black ops O____O ), black ops, DA2. I know now that I don't like the framed narrative in video games.

[eroeru]

I decided to replay right now, and all I can say... is tedious...

[Realmzmaster]

My experience is the exact opposite. I am enjoying my eighth playthrough.

[Aaleel]

eroeru wrote...

I decided to replay right now, and all I can say... is tedious...

This x100.  When I tried the second playthrough as started getting the enemy waves, and started going through that same cave and warehouse again and again it was just a chore, it just wasn't fun.

I tried to play it like an hour here and an hour there just to play another job, and make few choices differently, but I decided if I wasn't having fun playing it why bother.

[hobbit of the shire]

That's why I'm replaying DAO now. I will replay DA2 at some point, but I'll probably have to finish replaying DAO, DAA, TW1 and TW2 first. DA2 I would replay just to perhaps redo the Anders romance (because apparently I missed a lot in my "nice" attitude playthrough). Not so much interested in the other LIs, but that'd be a major reason for me to replay as the plot itself is pretty straightforward (I'd choose Bethany this time. I don't think I can ever be pro-Templar, so the decisions will probably be similar.).

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Interesting to note that those who generally dislike Dragon Age 2 claim it has little replay value while those who generally like it claim it has a lot.

For instance, you don't get people who go "I love this game, but there's not much reason to play again" or conversely "I think the game sucks, but I admit there's a lot of reasons to replay".

It's not interesting in the sense of it being surprising, but it's interesting because it shows how polarizing the game is. I'd say objectively speaking, it holds a less tangible elements that is typically associated with a replayable game (exploration, open gameplay, branching content, etc) than compared with a game like Origins but this thread readily proves YMMV.

On the issue of framed narrative, I felt like it was one of the more useless aspects of the game. Not in the sense of it was done poorly, or that framed narratives are inherently bad for the premise of Dragon Age 2. I just felt like it was massively under utilised to the point of irrelevance.

I believe that the framed narrative should've worked under two different premises:

That instead of framed narrative playing the role of literal information conveyance between Varric and Cassandra (the game is the story that Varric tells to Cassandra), it should've played the role of Varric's own internal recollection which may/may not be completely equivalent to what he actually tells Cassandra.

Secondly, it should've been tied to several major and minor questlines, as well as various actions/interactions that Hawke carries out, not just for companion introductions and the interludes between Acts (or DLC stuff). This would allow for a more "dynamic" interrogation as doing different things in a different order would change up the interrogation scenes and possibly the end result for Varric.

That way, rather than having the framed narrative as an element that's supposed to be important to the story but ultimately ancillary to the player's experience, Dragon Age 2 would actually consist of two concurrent narratives: the one of Hawke and the one of Varric. Hawke's story you'd control directly and Varric's, you'd affect indirectly.

There would also be a whole other list of potential positives for using the approach I'm thinking about which I could go into detail, but this isn't really the topic for that.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 22 novembre 2011 - 08:58 .

[DragonRageGT]

I've started my first DA2 run with the latest patch and all DLC. It was surprisingly good. Much better than the 6 full runs I had done pre-patch. But then Skyrim happened and DA2 is on halt still on chapter one. hehe 130 hours into Skyrim on my 1st run and I'm foreseeing some 500-1000hrs more before I can continue with DA2... if I don't start a second Skyrim run!

I like DA2, it is a good game. But Origins has the greatness that DA2 lacks (over 2,000 hrs with DAO). Skyrim and TW2 have it too. DA2? Well, it is a good game....

[Chromie]

mrcrusty wrote...
For instance, you don't get people who go "I love this game, but there's not much reason to play again" or conversely "I think the game sucks, but I admit there's a lot of reasons to replay".

That is how I feel about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Modifié par Ringo12, 22 novembre 2011 - 02:27 .

[FlyinElk212]

maxernst wrote...

On topic, there's two entirely different kinds of replay value.  From a story point of view, DA2 has much less replay value than DA:O because it allows fewer branches.  DA2's replay value depends on enjoying the combat and wanting to try out the different companion combinations and skill trees.  If you liked the combat it'll have replay value.

You're absolutely right about the replay value of this series being dependent on the amount of branching content via choice. The only thing I'd disagree about is replay value of DA2 being dependent on combat. For me, it was dependent on the characters, and the romances you could initiate with certain characters.

For example, I played the game twice, once romancing Fenris while viewing the incredible relationship between Aveline and Isabela, but I really enjoyed Merrill & Varric's characters, and wanted to see their opinions on the unfolding events. So the second playthrough featured a Merrill romance, and Varric was in my party at all times.

This being said, since DA:O had a lot more branching options within their story, whereas DA2 had only a handful of companion characters to experience, the replay value of DA:O was a lot higher.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

For me, the lack of acknowledgement of imported DAO choices kinds spoiled the replay value. Sure, Alistair shows up in different contexts but the only Wardens that get more than a passing reference are the Dalish and Amell mage. Choosing Harrowmont gets no mention at all. No acknowledgement that the Warden was a dwarf or city elf, or Cousland for those origins.

I had 6 completed DAO games to import. I only got to import 3. There wasnt any point in doing the others.

[Gemini1179]

Shinian2 wrote...

For me, the lack of acknowledgement of imported DAO choices kinds spoiled the replay value. Sure, Alistair shows up in different contexts but the only Wardens that get more than a passing reference are the Dalish and Amell mage. Choosing Harrowmont gets no mention at all. No acknowledgement that the Warden was a dwarf or city elf, or Cousland for those origins.

I had 6 completed DAO games to import. I only got to import 3. There wasnt any point in doing the others.

I think Varric mentions Harrowmont in passing at one point, other than that, you are correct. I played the game through 12 times to try different classes and choices and I've gotten to the point where I'm just sick of the game; sick of not being able to kill Patrice when I really want to in ACT1; sick of running around the same maps searching the same corners for the same crafting items and crappy loot.

I think BW made a HUGE mistake in making the central figure of a game someone who 'sits on the sidelines' and is more  'reactive' than 'proactive'. This is NOT a stimulating path for a character. I don't play games to be the 'average Joe'- I'm ALREADY that in my life, I like to get into an RPG to be a HERO, a LEGEND and a BAD A** MoFo. DA2 was a real let-down in this department.

Thank god for Skyrim. I'm not shoe-horned into anything and I'm a fricken DRAGONBORN. Not like a Nord shopkeeper who sells stuff to the DRAGONBORN...

[FieryDove]

Shinian2 wrote...

For me, the lack of acknowledgement of imported DAO choices kinds spoiled the replay value. Sure, Alistair shows up in different contexts but the only Wardens that get more than a passing reference are the Dalish and Amell mage. Choosing Harrowmont gets no mention at all. No acknowledgement that the Warden was a dwarf or city elf, or Cousland for those origins.

I had 6 completed DAO games to import. I only got to import 3. There wasnt any point in doing the others.

Warden Alistair never acknowledged my warden as his Li, Zevran didn't even mention my warden at all...and jumped Izzy. It kind of all ended up pointless...importing that is.

They should make a tool to fix import bugs and/or generate save games. Oh well.

I wonder if DA3 will have any references/cameo's from DAO/DA2. If so I would think fixing these would be worthwhile...yes?

As far as replaybility...I justed started a new DAO run. EPIC. The music, the details *no one* ever notices or needs to take away from the *action*...all of it. If the import bugs were fixed (And Legacy patched -ha snuck that in) there would be more replayabilty in DA2. As it stands, not so much.