314 réponses à ce sujet

[Akka le Vil]

[quote]jlb524 wrote...

I think you missed the point.

No one talks about it as a 'DA:O' flaw.  DA:O can do no wrong but DA2 is a complete failure.[/quote]
Well, I can sort of see your point, as DA:O, while a very good game, was far from perfect, but once DA2 was released and proved to be even MUCH more flawed, suddendly DA:O became the pinnacle of gaming.

Still, not everyone argue against DA2 from a point where DA:O is perfect. DA2 can be considered a debacle without requiring DAO to be some kind of angel descended on Earth to bring God's words.

[quote]hoorayforicecream wrote...

[quote]The
gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the
level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are
extremely similar.

You still maintain a team of four, but class
combos are now much more emphasized, combat speed has been sped up and
made more responsive, classes are more differentiated, talent choices
and builds require more planning, the horrendous gift-giving system has
been significantly changed, and now there's an actual basis for
disagreeing with your follower without driving him or her out of the
party.

But whatever. Completely different, robble robble.[/quote]
Don't be purposedly obtuse.
DA2 DESIGN PHILOSOPHY is widely changed compared to DAO. Nitpicking over details while avoiding the greater picture tends to show you know pretty well your claims are based on shaky ground, anyway.

[HanErlik]

Mr.House wrote...

Gunderic wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

trolling? 

How is she trolling when she is in fact right?

Of course; removal of tactical camera, airborne enemies, killing a hundred clone in order to cross a street, "I hate you, so come to bed" romances, teleporting rogues, reducing dialogue lines to half of the first game, the most passive protagonist, no non-combat skills... Sound like a great step for RPG genre to me.

Modifié par HanErlik, 11 décembre 2011 - 05:45 .

[Gunderic]

Mr.House wrote...

Gunderic wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

trolling? 

How is she trolling when she is in fact right?

An entirely linear stat progression/derived attributes system is an 'evolution'? Since when? The fact that all character building choices you can make during levelling are strictly combat-oriented is also an evolution?

how isn't this trolling? 

[HiroVoid]

Gunderic wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Gunderic wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

trolling? 

How is she trolling when she is in fact right?

An entirely linear stat progression/derived attributes system is an 'evolution'? Since when? The fact that all character building choices you can make during levelling are strictly combat-oriented is also an evolution?

how isn't this trolling? 

It makes it more accessible.

[Aaleel]

HiroVoid wrote...

And this is actually the bigger problem.  I truthfully don't want to go through a list, but to point out some things. 

`The city doesn't feel alive.  If you're going to focus the game mostly to one city, you need NPCs moving around, and more NPCs for me to interact with to make up for the fact that this is pretty much the main place I'm going to be for most of the game.  From what I can tell, the city never really changes whenever you go through a timeskip which is also really bad when you consider how you could end up changing the city's environments from new salesmen, add-ons to buildings, and other enhancements to the city.  They could've even adopted a system where previous choices could affect how certain areas will appear after a timeskip occurs. 

`I'm also not a fan of the dialogue wheel in this game.  Sometimes I'll want to make another choice because that's what I feel like I would say, but I end up having to either say that statement politely, humorously, or angrily cause that's how the dialogue wheel is set up at the moment. 

`A lot of the fetch quests are also horrible since I hate getting quests without really having a good reason other than I need money to do so.  For a comparison, in SWTOR, when you have to get some items, an NPC'll usually explain how they need these items for either wounded civilians or that an engine will blow that will cause water to be contaminated.  It's much more involving even though it's basically the same fetch quests. 

`For the rivalry/Friendship system, I'll admit that's an improvement.  A big problem for me with combat was just simply the *shivers* constant waves and waves of enemies coming out.  It got really annoying really quick.

The city was dead to me as well.  But moreso it was the recycled areas.  I'm a person who likes the where will the story take me next, what's next to see parts of fantasy games.  I could have even be good with areas recycled for each act, but new areas each act.  But the reality was that by the end of Act 1 you had seen pretty much every unique area in the game.

As far as the fetch quests.  The main problem I had was the large number of times you found an item, the quest flagged itself and then you just went back to the city, followed a marker and finished a quest you never even started.

The waves just made fights long and tedious, and theboss fights there was too much rinse and repeat the same exact thing over and over.  Too much time when the boss was in an invincible state and you were either standing around doing nothing while the boss expelled some power, or dealing with trash mobs waiting for the boss to come out of that state. 

Modifié par Aaleel, 11 décembre 2011 - 05:44 .

[FieryDove]

Plaintiff wrote...

Well, for starters, "Every mage we meet is an insane maleficar" doesn't really hold water with me because Hawke is a mercenary, the people he encounters are going to be dangerous. I don't think it justifies Meredith's paranoia in the least. The fact that Kirkwall is swarming with bloodmages, if anything, serves only to highlight her absolute failure. She's hunting for monsters under her bed and tormenting the innocent, while the real criminals have the run of the streets.
(snip)

I think you expessed my own thoughts well. Both sides were painted badly. There should have been a third option/ending, Walk away from Kirkwall. All my Hawke's wanted to after certain act 2 event anyhow.

I still don't understand the "O" moment. Maybe I never will. The developers (As far as I know) have never explained that. There were just too many things in Act 3 that made me scratch my head that ruined what could have been a decent ending. Imho

I am also tired of vanishing acts with no resolution. Bah

[xkg]

I'll just drop it here guys.
You should ask yourself a question - do you want to play a game filled up with cinematics or game filled up with other content - like text, dialogues etc...

(what is funny here - DA2 even with its voiced protagonist has 30% less spoken lines than DAO)

So you have 2 choices now


Dragon Age: Origins 
1,000,000 Words
1,000 Cinematics
1,000 Characters
56,000 Spoken Lines 
60 Hours of Gameplay

Dragon Age II
400,000 Words
2,500 Cinematics
500 Characters
38,000 Spoken Lines
40 Hours of Gameplay


http://gamrfeed.vgch...more-cinematic/

Modifié par xkg, 11 décembre 2011 - 05:50 .

[alex90c]

lol @ DAO having more spoken lines than DA2

[FieryDove]

xkg wrote...


I'll just drop it here guys.
You should ask yourself a question - do you want to play a game filled up with cinematics or game filled up with other content - like text, dialogues etc...

I would rather play a game...than watch a movie. I've always said this. But BW as a whole are going full on cinematic so its all moot.

[alex90c]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

You still maintain a team of four, but class combos are now much more emphasized, combat speed has been sped up and made more responsive, classes are more differentiated, talent choices and builds require more planning, the horrendous gift-giving system has been significantly changed, and now there's an actual basis for disagreeing with your follower without driving him or her out of the party.

But whatever. Completely different, robble robble.

Yes, I absolutely adored the fast combat.

[jlb524]

Akka le Vil wrote...
Still, not everyone argue against DA2 from a point where DA:O is perfect. DA2 can be considered a debacle without requiring DAO to be some kind of angel descended on Earth to bring God's words.

It seems that way, as DA:O is often used as the standard for excellence when pointing out DA2's flaws.

I see a lot of arguments like, "DA2 failed at X because they didn't do X like DA:O."   This ignores that DA:O might not have did X the best way (and it probably didn't do X the best way which is why the devs tried to change it in DA2..whether they succeeded or failed to improve X is a different matter).

FieryDove wrote...
I would rather play a game...than watch a movie. I've always said this. But BW as a whole are going full on cinematic so its all moot.

BioWare has always focused on story-telling in their RPGs.

The big change is that they've moved away from presenting the story like 'reading a book' and moved towards presenting it like a movie.  Which of course means less overall dialog, since cinematics cost more $$.

Modifié par jlb524, 11 décembre 2011 - 06:00 .

[Mr.House]

alex90c wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

You still maintain a team of four, but class combos are now much more emphasized, combat speed has been sped up and made more responsive, classes are more differentiated, talent choices and builds require more planning, the horrendous gift-giving system has been significantly changed, and now there's an actual basis for disagreeing with your follower without driving him or her out of the party.

But whatever. Completely different, robble robble.

Yes, I absolutely adored the fast combat.

Just because you didn't like it does not mean others did not.:happy:

[hoorayforicecream]

Perhaps some folks have confused the term "similar" for "better". When I say similar, I mean they took an existing design principle and changed it slightly. They did not create a whole new gameplay system from whole cloth. Instead of a single approval meter, now you have two. Instead of combat speed at X, it is now X+Y. There are differences, for sure. But the similarities in mechanics from DAO to DA2 are much less than the difference between real gameplay changes, like fallout 2 to fallout 3.

[FieryDove]

jlb524 wrote...

BioWare has always focused on story-telling in their RPGs.

The big change is that they've moved away from presenting the story like 'reading a book' and moved towards presenting it like a movie.  Which of course means less overall dialog, since cinematics cost more $$.

Which is why I adore BW games. Story and companions. That has always been BW's strong suit. (imho)

But when my characters have to make up things or read a codex to find out what they/companions have been doing for multiple years...several times during one game it makes me...scratch my head again.

hoorayforicecream wrote...

combat speed has been sped up and made more responsive,

The shuffle is still there...at least for archers. Varric and my Hawke dance in place many times trying to disarm traps when enemies are spotted. Ugh

Modifié par FieryDove, 11 décembre 2011 - 06:10 .

[jbrand2002uk]

Mr.House wrote...

Gunderic wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

It was pretty much the fact that it was completely different from Dragon Age: Origins that's part of the problem.

The gameplay was mostly an evolution. If you look at the combat, the level-up system and the basic mechanics, it's easy to see that they are extremely similar.

trolling? 

How is she trolling when she is in fact right?

Its the DAO Fanboi stanby " DAO is gods gift to RPG's, absoloutly perfect in every single way and anyone who disagrees is a troll bla bla blah "

Gunderic and the others You should have gone to Specsavers because your Rose tinted glasses need adjusting 

[silentassassin264]

Plaintiff wrote...

TheRealJayDee wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

I disagree entirely. If any bias exists, I found it to be totally in favour of mages.

Care to elaborate?

Well, for starters, "Every mage we meet is an insane maleficar" doesn't really hold water with me because Hawke is a mercenary, the people he encounters are going to be dangerous. I don't think it justifies Meredith's paranoia in the least. The fact that Kirkwall is swarming with bloodmages, if anything, serves only to highlight her absolute failure. She's hunting for monsters under her bed and tormenting the innocent, while the real criminals have the run of the streets.

Some mages resort to pretty terrible things, but I don't see why they should be expected to have sympathy for others when it is denied them by society at large. particularly for their captors. Thrask and Keran are the only two who are shown to genuinely give a **** about the mages under their care, and frankly, it's too little, too late.The other templars are just as bad as the mages are. Obviously Alrik isn't the only one in on the rape gig, since he has other templars with him to apprehend Ella. Ser Karras, if left to live is revealed to have raped Alain repeatedly. If killed, that task falls to other templars who are not specified. A passing comment from a tranquil reveals that the tranquil mages running stalls are beaten if they get robbed. In Act 2, if Feynriel is sent to the Dalish, templars head to Sundermount and are accused of torturing da'len (elven children) to get information, which they don't even deny; the female templar leading the group says "it was necessary". There are more examples, but I need to replay the game. Basically, what it comes down to for me is that mages become monsters through possession, but templars have no such excuse.

I can't blame anyone for using all the tools at their disposal (blood magic included) to get out of what is basically a fancy prison where they might endure any amount of psychological and physical torment. As Hawke says if you choose to argue against Cullen, mages have been systematically abused for the past thousand years. The mages have been pushed to extremes, they can't be reasonably be judged by their actions. The very definition of "extreme" is that it's not their usual behaviour.

It seems pretty clear to me that the Circle system is fundamentally flawed, and I don't see how anyone can deny this, no matter what side of the debate they fall on. Cullen's attitude; that mages "can't be treated like people", is implicitly endorsing the abuses of his fellow templars (whether he's aware of them or not). And it's total hypocrisy. From a young age, mages are raised in an environment of alienation and abuse, and they're expected to grow up normal? What complete ****ing retard thought this was a good idea? It doesn't surprise me in the least that we run into so many crazed mages. What surprises me is that we run into any sane ones at all. And I think it's extremely telling that of the... eight (?) extremely sane and capable mage party members present in the series to date, six are apostates, only three are circle-trained at all, and only two (Wynne and Finn) actually liked it there, and "like" isn't exactly an accurate word, since Wynne at least is still extremely aware of the abuses of the templars and chantry, having witnessed them first-hand, in the supposedly "more lenient" circle of Ferelden.

Cullen's attitude, the same attitude of the Chantry and the templars at large, is exactly the wrong one to have. Treating mages like monsters will only ensure that that is what they grow up to be. Mages, if anything, need to be treated with a greater deal of sensitivity and care than any normal human, because emotional distress (ie; what you might feel after being torn away from your family by strangers and raped for the next few years) makes them exponentially more susceptible to demonic possession.

I won't deny that the mages in DA2 commit many atrocities, but I have yet to see one good reason why they should give half a **** about a world that clearly doesn't extend them the same courtesy, and never has. They aren't allowed families or freedom or love. All the things that make life worth living are denied to them, so what good reason is there to keep them from sacrificing their free will to a demon in exchange for the power to make the world burn?

See the problem is that while you pointed out the mages are treated horriby and that leads to the cornered mentality makes them sympathetic, the writers did not agree with you.  Fenris, that former templar, and pretty much every non mage in the game always go to the circular insane logic that since they turned to the blood magic in the corner, it proofs them right that all mages are going to lose control and cause havoc.  Despite that is clearly insane troll logic, they feel perfectly justified and the writers felt perfectly justified with that accusation.  

As I said with Merrill before, she did nothing wrong.  It was not like Merrill was running around using blood magic for mundane or slightly evil things.  She was being rather responsible and in a New Path did nothing wrong and still everyone in the clan blames Merrill for Marethari's suicide and they even make Merrill blame herself for doing absolutely nothing wrong and feel quite justified because she is a blood mage.  Merrill is my favorite character and her character quest just ends up another way for them to talk down mages and act like the a stupid, irresponsible adult children who endanger everyone around them.  

Yes if you look for the mage oppresion in the game, it is there, seeing as by Act 3 they are held in cages.  But do you ever get to see the mages held like animals?  Do you see any non mage really taking their side?  Nope and Nope.  The writers made everything in the game feel like it was perfectly justified in response to the mages and that is the bias.  If you stand up with Orsino in the square at the beginning of Act 3, no one joins you out of sympathy of the mages.  The nobles that join you do it because they want to overthrow Meredith and get the nobility ruling again, not any sympathy for the mages.  The Mage Underground is family members of mages and mages so that is still pretty much an exception and it really does not tie into the main story anyway.

[jlb524]

FieryDove wrote...
Which is why I adore BW games. Story and companions. That has always been BW's strong suit. (imho)

But when my characters have to make up things or read a codex to find out what they/companions have been doing for multiple years...several times during one game it makes me...scratch my head again.

That specific example is an issue with the time jumps in DA2 and doesn't have anything to do with the 'movie' quality they are going for.  I'm not sure how they could have handled that better, short of showing you what happened during the time jumps.

That doesn't make DA2 any less of a game than, let's say, BG2.

[Monica83]

Nooo don't touch dragon age 2 it's button awesome....

Please...

DA2 is barely an rpg how can you roleplay a character when the only lines you have to answer is..

Diplomatic: hooo yes its cute
Sarcastic: ::trollface::
Aggressive: I'm a rude jerk

The problem of dragon age 2 is:

Childish Actitude: Flashy over the top anims with lot of blood and nonsense ability like teleporting attacks...

Lack of strategic battle and micromanagement: All so fast and also so unrealistic with 100000 ennemy that spawn from nowhere...

No story Coherence: See characters killed in the first game that come backs explaining: hoo the maker did it!

Mediocre low artsyle: Do what you want make what you want but you can't cut in half the graphic and remove visual features to have empty large and reaused areas and call it artstyle is just pathetic.. Look the darkspawn or the elves

Mediocre story: The story is just meh and in my personal opinion is just a cliffhanger with random events merged in..

Characters: some good.. like varric... other are just bland

Dragon age 2 is innovative? in what?

Also the dialogue system is dumbed down..

[FieryDove]

jlb524 wrote...

That specific example is an issue with the time jumps in DA2 and doesn't have anything to do with the 'movie' quality they are going for.  I'm not sure how they could have handled that better, short of showing you what happened during the time jumps.

That doesn't make DA2 any less of a game than, let's say, BG2.

I disagree. The entire game was "Varric's Movie". I am still waiting for act iv...and Hawke wakes up!

The timeskips hmmm, maybe we could have...played those years? I know...silly of me to suggest that.

[AngryFrozenWater]

When ME2 was in development I didn't like its direction. Someone on the old forums recommended DA:O as an alternative. It turned out he was right. I had no expectations and DA:O was excellent. To me it was even better than ME2. When reading about DA2 while it was under development made me frown a lot. It looked like DA:O sold just as good as ME2 and maybe better, but for some strange reason DA2 had to use elements of ME2. It was clear that the action elements were its focus and the team had nothing good to say about DA:O. It felt like DA:O was supposed to be a failure and DA2 was brought in for the rescue.

To me DA:O didn't need any rescuing. Maybe DA2 could be more polished. Better graphics, better animations, better cinematics, more variety and more of the good stuff - whatever that good stuff was. I had nothing to worry about. The doctors ensured us that DA2 was supposed to keep the good stuff from DA:O and it was made a a fundamental mission statement. But no, once released we saw that less was better. Less meant the game could be produced faster and cheaper. A lot of stuff (from dialogue wheel to e-mails to Normmandy - erm, Hawke Estate) came directly from ME2. And to sell all that Mr Laidlaw and the Marketing redefined terms like streamlining, innovation and iconization. That showed in the end result. Also, there's no need to explain that recycled environments and foes parachuting from thin air obviously didn't work.

Then of course there was the lie that the decisions of the PC would matter and "shape the world". There was a large part of an official podcast devoted to that and how even the imported DA:O game would matter. The end result is of course that none of that mattered. The game played out the same, no matter what import and what decisions you made.

That doesn't mean I didn't like DA2. It was OK. But that's just it's problem. It was not great. It didn't blew me away like DA:O did. I think the dev team did the best they could. They worked their asses off and were probably under the impression that the game would be a hit.

Mr Laidlaw later admitted that the general responses caught him and the team off guard. They needed time to let it sink in. I was pleasantly surprised when he started a thread about the future direction of the game. Initially I welcomed that, because DA3 would get the best of DA:O and DA2. However, it turned out that he didn't want to commit to that and specify what the best was. As soon as people came with suggestions one would could see that it was all damage control and all that he was interested in was that DA2's direction would be preserved in DA3.

Then Legacy came. Initially I was happy with what I saw. No recycled environment and no ninja paratroopers. But if you think about that then this not an improvement at all. It is simply what one would expect from a good game. And if I look at its decisions then nothing changed either. Again, one could select a side, but that didn't matter at all. The game ends fighting the same boss and thus, like the main game, any branch in the story is wrapped back as soon as a decision is made. The good thing about that DLC is that it was somehow connected to the story. And I also felt that, even though it went in the wrong direction, the dev team worked hard on it and that showed.

So, I thought I would give MotA a final chance. That one was not connected to the game at all. It was a stand alone story. I think many of us hoped that it would be a bridge to DA3 or somehow connected to the mage/templar conflict that would explain more of the end of DA2. Nope. It was just about a heist. And I think BW wanted to throw a popular voice actress in and even base the character on her looks. And again, nothing there shaped the world. It's not enough to get my attention. So that was the first DLC that I didn't buy. Maybe I will some day, but not now. Enough is enough.

Somehow in all of this it feels like BW thinks that RPGs are a niche market. And to sell 10 milion copies they had pump it up with action. I think that the idea of the niche market is a myth. Skyrim proved that by selling 7 million copies in no time. DA:O sold half. And I doubt that DA2 sold more than DA:O. Nope. We don't need more action elements to buy a game. We just need a good game. And a slient PC was no obstacle either. Skyrim went GotY because it is a good game. Unlike DA2 it did not want to be something else. It just wanted to improve on a successful game (whether you like its predecessor or not) without cutting corners. And that attitude worked.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 11 décembre 2011 - 07:43 .

[jlb524]

FieryDove wrote...

I disagree. The entire game was "Varric's Movie". I am still waiting for act iv...and Hawke wakes up!

The timeskips hmmm, maybe we could have...played those years? I know...silly of me to suggest that.

I really don't know what you are arguing.

You say DA2 was like a movie and not a game.

Because...they added in a few codex entries of things that happened with companions during the time skips instead of showing them in game?  They did similar things in DA:O, you know (i.e., added in Codex entries for each character to offer more insight and fill in some back-story).

Also, why should they implement playing an entire year just so we can see Merrill getting stuck in the Viscount's airing cupboard?

[DragonRageGT]

DA2 is a poor game compared to anything great that BW has done in the past. And it is really really poor compared to Origins. Among the zillion things Origins has much better than DA2, I'll name only two. Aerial Camera and Mage's Tower Library with its Summoning Science quest!

[Melca36]

jlb524 wrote...

FieryDove wrote...

I disagree. The entire game was "Varric's Movie". I am still waiting for act iv...and Hawke wakes up!

The timeskips hmmm, maybe we could have...played those years? I know...silly of me to suggest that.

I really don't know what you are arguing.

You say DA2 was like a movie and not a game.

Because...they added in a few codex entries of things that happened with companions during the time skips instead of showing them in game?  They did similar things in DA:O, you know (i.e., added in Codex entries for each character to offer more insight and fill in some back-story).

Also, why should they implement playing an entire year just so we can see Merrill getting stuck in the Viscount's airing cupboard?

The developers already said they next game would not be a 3 act narrative. The timeskips were a failure of the game.  

[FieryDove]

jlb524 wrote...

I really don't know what you are arguing.

You say DA2 was like a movie and not a game.

Because...they added in a few codex entries of things that happened with companions during the time skips instead of showing them in game?  They did similar things in DA:O, you know (i.e., added in Codex entries for each character to offer more insight and fill in some back-story).

Also, why should they implement playing an entire year just so we can see Merrill getting stuck in the Viscount's airing cupboard?

The companions in DAO did get more expanded codex entries each time my character got to know them more. It worked well I think.

Maybe Evelina was right. All Hawke does is sit on his/her bum and eat sweetmeats all day. I don't know what I did for most of the timeline. That is my whole point. That isn't good.

And come on...Merrill getting lost with Varric muttering under his breath while leading her out "This is costing me a fortune!" Would have been awesome.

[jlb524]

FieryDove wrote...
The companions in DAO did get more expanded codex entries each time my character got to know them more. It worked well I think.

Yes.  I think it worked in DA2 as well.

FieryDove wrote...
Maybe Evelina was right. All Hawke does is sit on his/her bum and eat sweetmeats all day. I don't know what I did for most of the timeline. That is my whole point. That isn't good.

That's for you to decide.  What did the Warden do before the events that we saw in DA:O?

I guess...sit on his/her bum and eat sweetmeats all day?

FieryDove wrote...
And come on...Merrill getting lost with Varric muttering under his breath while leading her out "This is costing me a fortune!" Would have been awesome.

Of course, but I don't know if it would warrent a whole act devoted to it xD