This post might be a little controversial to some. I want the companions to be more fleshed out than they were in DA2. I know this has been said before. I've played DA2 roughly half a dozen times. Usually my LI has been Fenris (I fell in love with that voice on day 1) or Anders. Once it was Isabela.
I'm tired of Fenris and Anders. There, I've said it. I was blinded(?) by the Voice for awhile, but I'm tired of Fenris. I would have thought there would be more growth on both their parts by Act III. And no, I don't consider Fenris finally growing a set and telling me he loves me to be much in the way of growth since he continually growses about mages. Even when I am one. You would think at some point being with Hawke so much might make him willing to consider that all mages are not the same. But right up to the end, he is condemning mages right and left, with every bitter breath. If we had options to talk to people when we want, this might have been addressed or dealt with better, but certainly there could have been something in the banters to indicate he wasn't so bitter and angry with every-blasted-thing. He's got me and he's still angry?
As for Anders, tortured soul, good deed goes incredibly punished, yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as that goes, I believe the underlying environment of Kirkwall contributes much to that, but anyway. To be fair, he is more light-hearted early on, can at least be amused in conversations with Varric. He becomes more earnest/whiny as the game progresses. How about more of a struggle with him about what to do? Not just arguing same old same old with other companions. Or struggling about his relationship, as friend or lover, with Hawke? Keept the two of them from being one note ponies.
I think Isabela may actually show the most growth. Yes, she's still very Isabela at the end, but along the way, if you befriend her, she becomes less selfish. A bit. In Act III, if you're friends (I've never turned her over to the Arishok so don't know if I see her again) she will even admit that she doesn't miss her ship so much being with you. And if she's your LI, it seems to me that when she finally admits she loves you, it shows real personal growth on her part.
To get back to my point, make sure the companions have more depth, more opportunity to change based on their relationship with you. It should matter.beyond 'I like you' or 'I don't like you.'
More Constructive Criticism starting today, March 22, 2012
Débuté par
QueenPurpleScrap
, mars 22 2012 09:06
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#177
Posté 05 septembre 2012 - 02:24
QueenPurpleScrap
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There is one thing I definitely liked about DA2 over DAO, unless my imagination is playing tricks with me it seems as if the companions' banter was triggered more often without having to exit and re-enter an area. I liked that their conversations seemed to occur a bit more naturally, rather than one conversation in the middle of a lot of silence while traversing Hightown. And it made sense to me that they would occur more in the daytime than at night when you would have to be more alert.
#178
Posté 06 septembre 2012 - 05:34
gonzalez.melissa53
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So excited about the next "possible" game in the DA-verse! I liked both DA games and have completed both more times than is healthy... XD
I really loved :
DA 2 looting system
DA O ability to outfit companions
DA 2 artwork design
DA O traval. Wasn't a fan of long loading screans but that was my pc XD but I loved that we got to traval all over.
What I didn't like:
DA 2 charter creation screen... A little clunky on the pc as far as sliding that bar back and forth.
Would have liked to see a release for a tool set for DA2. What can I say? I like lots of hair and makeup options XD.
We all know the repetitive map use was a bummer. Still love you though...
More banter? I just don't think you can have enough XD.
I would like to see effects after major battles. Like scars or temp. loss of intellect. For instance in DA2 with the Arishok fight maybe a few scars would have worked. Or in DAO I think someone in the party should have succumbed to the taint in the deep roads, cause lets face it at least 2 of those brought with you were not wardens and that was allot of exposure. Even a lyrum addiction for a compaion would have been a neat twist. Fenris could have gotten sick once the magister died for his marking de-stablizing... Just a thought.
I really loved :
DA 2 looting system
DA O ability to outfit companions
DA 2 artwork design
DA O traval. Wasn't a fan of long loading screans but that was my pc XD but I loved that we got to traval all over.
What I didn't like:
DA 2 charter creation screen... A little clunky on the pc as far as sliding that bar back and forth.
Would have liked to see a release for a tool set for DA2. What can I say? I like lots of hair and makeup options XD.
We all know the repetitive map use was a bummer. Still love you though...
More banter? I just don't think you can have enough XD.
I would like to see effects after major battles. Like scars or temp. loss of intellect. For instance in DA2 with the Arishok fight maybe a few scars would have worked. Or in DAO I think someone in the party should have succumbed to the taint in the deep roads, cause lets face it at least 2 of those brought with you were not wardens and that was allot of exposure. Even a lyrum addiction for a compaion would have been a neat twist. Fenris could have gotten sick once the magister died for his marking de-stablizing... Just a thought.
#179
Posté 07 septembre 2012 - 12:25
batlin
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This will probably be the 12-millionth time griping about this stuff, but here goes:
Story: The acts in DA2 barely had anything to do with each other. Hawke is completely irrelevant to the events going on, takes no preemptive action to prevent disasters but rather waits for years before the s*** hits the fan before he/she reacts to it. The villains don't show up until far into the second act. And not the least of the problems, the story is blatantly and clumsily railroaded. Even the big choice between the mages and templars at the end changes exactly nothing about the narrative.
Characters: One-note, shallow, stupid, or any combination thereof. Everything out of Anders' mouth is about mage oppression. Everything out of Fenris' mouth is about how all mages are evil. Merril, despite being trained to be a Keeper, seems to be completely oblivious to how demons operate. Isabela is a walking sex joke. Carver is a whiny prat. Aveline has no character traits outside of being a stick-in-the-mud. Varric is the only consistently likable character among all your companions. It was also very annoying that you could not talk to your companions whenever you wanted, but rather you were only ever able to talk with them one-on-one at the designated time and place. Even if you just had a dramatic encounter with one of them, Hawke decides that it would be best to wait three years before ever bringing the subject up with that person again. It's things like this, the writers determining the plot's pace rather than the player, that really takes any semblance of control away from the person who's actually holding the controller.
Setting: Having everything set in one city was a huge mistake. The city itself is boring-looking and gets very old very fast. Having a game set entirely in a familiar area is just about the best way to remove the fantastical nature of any story; an especially big problem in a fantasy game. And the repeated maps, etc etc etc.
Art: Everything looks washed-out. People look like Barbie and Ken dolls and the environments look dull and depressing. Enemy character models took a huge turn for the worst; darkspawn look more like cartoon versions of their appearance in DA:O. Lastly, Alistair and Zevran look nothing like they did in DA:O. Leliana looked fine, so why get lazy with those two?
Gameplay: Button = boring. The combat is simplistic and looks ridiculous; combat animations are over the top and enemies explode when stabbed with blades. Instead of tactically-placed enemies, they show up in waves by falling out of the sky from the edge of the map. It feels less like Baldur's Gate and more like Dynasty Warriors. There's no tactical view. There's no equipment options for companions and companions can only use one type of weapon. Only Anders gets more than one healing spell and is the only one with a resurrection spell. These factors absolutely cripple the player's ability to mix and match party configurations because each companion can only ever fit one narrow combat role. The one and only improvement to combat from DA:O is adding more cross-class combos.
Dialogue: The dialogue wheel is horrible. There is no point to using blurbs rather than writing out the full text whatsoever. All the burbs serve to do is make it needlessly vague what Hawke would say. Ironically, the tone indicators were a far more honest and accurate indicator of what would be said than the written words were. I can't believe that in 2011 we had a major AAA RPG title with dialogue as simplistic as the dialogue in The Bard's Tale.
DLC: Day-one DLC is ok when it's free for people who bought a game new as incentive to not buying used copies. It's not ok when day-one DLC is paid no matter what. Probably the most egregious aspect of that is the Sebastian DLC. Because companions can only ever use one type of weapon and Sebastian is the only one that uses a bow, unless you yourself play as an archer, Bioware quite literally holds the entire bow class of weapon hostage unless you pony up an extra $7. That is disgustingly abusive to your customers.
Story: The acts in DA2 barely had anything to do with each other. Hawke is completely irrelevant to the events going on, takes no preemptive action to prevent disasters but rather waits for years before the s*** hits the fan before he/she reacts to it. The villains don't show up until far into the second act. And not the least of the problems, the story is blatantly and clumsily railroaded. Even the big choice between the mages and templars at the end changes exactly nothing about the narrative.
Characters: One-note, shallow, stupid, or any combination thereof. Everything out of Anders' mouth is about mage oppression. Everything out of Fenris' mouth is about how all mages are evil. Merril, despite being trained to be a Keeper, seems to be completely oblivious to how demons operate. Isabela is a walking sex joke. Carver is a whiny prat. Aveline has no character traits outside of being a stick-in-the-mud. Varric is the only consistently likable character among all your companions. It was also very annoying that you could not talk to your companions whenever you wanted, but rather you were only ever able to talk with them one-on-one at the designated time and place. Even if you just had a dramatic encounter with one of them, Hawke decides that it would be best to wait three years before ever bringing the subject up with that person again. It's things like this, the writers determining the plot's pace rather than the player, that really takes any semblance of control away from the person who's actually holding the controller.
Setting: Having everything set in one city was a huge mistake. The city itself is boring-looking and gets very old very fast. Having a game set entirely in a familiar area is just about the best way to remove the fantastical nature of any story; an especially big problem in a fantasy game. And the repeated maps, etc etc etc.
Art: Everything looks washed-out. People look like Barbie and Ken dolls and the environments look dull and depressing. Enemy character models took a huge turn for the worst; darkspawn look more like cartoon versions of their appearance in DA:O. Lastly, Alistair and Zevran look nothing like they did in DA:O. Leliana looked fine, so why get lazy with those two?
Gameplay: Button = boring. The combat is simplistic and looks ridiculous; combat animations are over the top and enemies explode when stabbed with blades. Instead of tactically-placed enemies, they show up in waves by falling out of the sky from the edge of the map. It feels less like Baldur's Gate and more like Dynasty Warriors. There's no tactical view. There's no equipment options for companions and companions can only use one type of weapon. Only Anders gets more than one healing spell and is the only one with a resurrection spell. These factors absolutely cripple the player's ability to mix and match party configurations because each companion can only ever fit one narrow combat role. The one and only improvement to combat from DA:O is adding more cross-class combos.
Dialogue: The dialogue wheel is horrible. There is no point to using blurbs rather than writing out the full text whatsoever. All the burbs serve to do is make it needlessly vague what Hawke would say. Ironically, the tone indicators were a far more honest and accurate indicator of what would be said than the written words were. I can't believe that in 2011 we had a major AAA RPG title with dialogue as simplistic as the dialogue in The Bard's Tale.
DLC: Day-one DLC is ok when it's free for people who bought a game new as incentive to not buying used copies. It's not ok when day-one DLC is paid no matter what. Probably the most egregious aspect of that is the Sebastian DLC. Because companions can only ever use one type of weapon and Sebastian is the only one that uses a bow, unless you yourself play as an archer, Bioware quite literally holds the entire bow class of weapon hostage unless you pony up an extra $7. That is disgustingly abusive to your customers.
Modifié par batlin, 07 septembre 2012 - 12:34 .
