53 réponses à ce sujet

[zazei]

I'm sure some people will lynch me for this but I must admit while I like Dragon Age I just can't get myself to enjoy the combat party of the game. It's just not fun in any way or form at all.

At first I started playing on hard because I normally do like a challenge and normal mode rarely provide one. In this the game isn't that different then earlier Bioware games, I had a couple of hard fights through the game but nothing that overly surprised me. However what I wasn't expecting was that as the game went on it would start to feel more and more like just a huge dungeon crawl then anything else. Before now I never thought a RPG needed to have the best combat system imaginable to be enjoyable but somehow Dragon Age proved to me that it still needs something that works for the player in order to be enjoyable. Sadly this system doesn't do it for me.

The difference between earlier games I believe is while I thought Kotor didn't always have the best combat at least fighting never took too long and at the end of the game where the enemies started to stack up a player could normally just spam force lighting if nothing else interested them. Dragon Age however as a tactical RPG sadly requires a bit more then that so if the combat isn't fun it still can't be ignored.The worst part of it all is that I often got the feeling each dungeon or level was a few rooms larger then it needed to be with a few more groups or enemies that had to be there. As the game went on that feeling sadly grew stronger as well reminding me more and more of dungeon crawls.

While I doubt it's what really kills it for me one thing I didn't like is how the party is made up by just four party members. In Baldur's gate 2 that allows six party members I often feel restricted in who I can bring along yet through it claim to be a spiritual successor of those games it only allows one more party member then a regular Bioware game. It also only have a limited number of NPCs. From a story point view all this is more then enough but from a tactical view it seems limiting when setting up a group.

In comparison Baldur's gate 2 offers 16 different party members. I wouldn't want to start to compare those sixteen to the ones we get in Dragon Age but in terms of game play it allows a lot more freedom in setting up a party to bring along and most of the interaction with NPC's are done in camp as it is. In Dragon Age I often had one or two choices or do it on myself while in Baldur's gate there is sometimes as much as five different people to bring along to fill a certain role. Many of them quite from each other as well.That there is only three classes in Dragon Age and no dual classing doesn't help either.

In the end this is the first Bioware game I ever had to struggle to keep the interest up in order to complete. After I was done the first time I honestly was ready to toss it on the shelf to collect dust and never take it out again. However my view improved a lot when I tried it out on a easier setting to avoid as much combat as possible a second time around. After that I that the rest of the game wasn't too bad. However even though I started to like it again I doubt I will manage to do go through it a third time even if there is more options I like to explore. I just can't get myself to like the fighting no matter what.

I wouldn't say Dragon Age is a bad game though. As I see it it's more like a great game that is brought down by the game play taking too long, feeling too much like a dungeon crawl and not just being enjoyable enough to endure in order to play the rest of the game. Anyone else feels restricted by the games combat system? For me it just seems the largest flaw in the game.

Modifié par zazei, 16 décembre 2009 - 04:07 .

[vizering]

I don't know what you don't like about the combat system... it's very similar to Bg2. I totally agree on the small party though. I think BG2 felt so epic because you had a adventuring group where DAO sports a small swat team.

The other thing I don't like is the general player attitude complaining that it's to easy to spam AOE spells and clear maps in three seconds...

yo, any idea what some of us did in Bg2 man? You think certain spells in DAO are overpowered? In BG2 you could simulate god mode for christ sake and it was the way to go.

Anyway, overall I like DAO, but something is missing. It might simply be the fact that the world is in its infant years and hasn't matured lore-wise (for example bg1 vs bg2).

I think in the long run DAO will become very successful, its far from reaching its peak just yet.

[Jonfon_ire]

I like the combat system. In fact had an excellent epic battle last night which reaffirmed my love for it. Thought I was a goner but managed to pull it out of the bag.



I do sorta agree with you on the 4 character limit, again formulated from last nights play. I'm at a point where I'd really, really like to have another one or two slots on the party, just so I could take characters who are relevant to the area I'm in as well as bringing along those who I just like to have along and now miss.

[AiyanaLindari]

Combat doesn't usually interest me but I am truly enjoying the combat system in Dragon Age. I enjoy planning out the fights and timing things to ensure no one in my party falls flat on their face.

More party members would have been fun but I like the game for what it is.

Are your battles going overlong because you're playing on hard? You could try lowering the difficulty and see if it provides a better balance for you.

[zazei]

I don't find them all that similar to be honest. While there are a lot of cheesy tactics many enemies in Baldur's gate had to be handled in different ways while in Dragon Age I mostly did the same thing over and over until the dungeon crawl was done.



Here most of what I seem to do is toss one or two AoE spells and then spam Cone of Cold and shatter the adds with crits. Beyond that I dislike aggro in a singleplayer game. While I like and play mmorpg's I don't think it has any place in a game I play on my own. It just feels stupid that enemy AI goes for the enemies that carries the heaviest armor. I never once had to worry about rogues one or two shotting any mage that wasn't protected like in some battles in BG

[Jonfon_ire]

zazei wrote...

I don't find them all that similar to be honest. While there are a lot of cheesy tactics many enemies in Baldur's gate had to be handled in different ways while in Dragon Age I mostly did the same thing over and over until the dungeon crawl was done.

Here most of what I seem to do is toss one or two AoE spells and then spam Cone of Cold and shatter the adds with crits. Beyond that I dislike aggro in a singleplayer game. While I like and play mmorpg's I don't think it has any place in a game I play on my own. It just feels stupid that enemy AI goes for the enemies that carries the heaviest armor. I never once had to worry about rogues one or two shotting any mage that wasn't protected like in some battles in BG

In fairness in BG mostly it was "sneak in with Superior Invis, send in an Animated Dead, cast Horrid Wilting" and that was that (ok, Fireball earlier on when you didn't have Horrid Wilting)

The enemy AI can and will break off and attack your mages etc if they do more damage than the armoured one. In the aforementioned battle from last night that occured, someone broke off and killed a magic user after they'd damaged them with a spell.

The Taunt Warriors have seems too powerful though, personally I think it could do with toning down (and I don't even use it with Forcefield, which is flat out broken)

[Dieover]

The game need more Assassin that's immune to magic for 10 sec and they're there just to harass your backline casters, just like some area in the game and that's a challenge everybody would want : )

I also limited myself from specting all AOE spam, but one. I mostly invest in single target and hex spells to spic things up.

Modifié par Dieover, 16 décembre 2009 - 04:30 .

[gingerbill]

i like the combat system , think its the best of any RPG . While i loved BG series i wasnt a fan of instant death due to how saving throws worked , i much prefer DA system , seems alot less luck based and more interactive .



My main fault with combat would be my main fault of the entire game , mage's are gods.

[Zenon]

Even while there will always be some room for improvement, I think the combat system of DA:O is one of the features making it outstanding and stick out from the rest. DA:O takes the importance of position and tactics to an entirely new level. Go Bioware!

In most D&D based games including BG and NWN series my most difficult decision was which spells my Wizard and Cleric need to learn/memorize before the encounter. I hated that. Ok, in NWN I usually only played sorcerer then. Other than that I'd just spam the enemy with horrid wilting, meteor hail, fireballs, etc, because I often played on normal level (higher was sometimes just too hard for me) with no friendly-fire. In DA:O I started on "normal", which has 50% FF on the PC, and found it good. After having improved my tactics I'm now having a great time on "hard" level.

I think it adds to replay value, if you can't bring the whole group in battles all the time. How many enemies would you need for a good challenge, if you constantly had 3 warriors, 2 mages, 2 rogues, 1 golem, 1 dog plus yourself = 10 party members around? And how big would your computer have to be for a fluid animation and combat sequence? Not to mention the stress of handling the micromanagement of all characters... probably including pause a normal fight would take at least 15-20 minutes?

Just some considerations from me.

Modifié par Zenon, 16 décembre 2009 - 04:42 .

[Darpaek]

Watching the same swinging animations got old after awhile. But that's a flaw that most games of this genre share. I'd hoped for a more "animated" combat in this game, though - so I was let down a little. I think the combat would be a ton more fun if every special weapon, warrior, and rogue ability had 1/4 the stamina cost.

[Armenion]

Darpaek wrote...

Watching the same swinging animations got old after awhile. But that's a flaw that most games of this genre share. I'd hoped for a more "animated" combat in this game, though - so I was let down a little. I think the combat would be a ton more fun if every special weapon, warrior, and rogue ability had 1/4 the stamina cost.

There are mods out there that give certain specs more punch. Also, Death Blow seems to work after the patch. I rarely had any stamina problems.

I like the combat system... it's much more involving than that of NWN apart from having a far better presentation. Animations are smooth, plenty of blood, awesome sound and not to forget the finishung moves! The only thing that ruins this a bit is that you can't queue up actions which results in pausing the game quite often.

[Darpaek]

I'm sure there will eventually be a mod that reduces or completely removes stamina costs for most abilities. I'm just saying combat would look a lot different than other "stand-and-swing" RPGs if you could get off more than a shield pummel, an assault, and a warcry every battle.



The game was advertised as having dynamic, moving combat with clips of ogres throwing people around, shield dudes knocking other dudes on their ass, etc. Actual in-game combat looks like the trailers for about the first 5 seconds of any combat. Sans stamina costs, I think combat would look at lot more like how the game was billed pre-release.

[RockGnasher]

there do seem to be some problems with the combat, for me. It seems like the computer times the knockdown moves far better than I am able to and sometimes after a knockdown my npcs stop targetting the guy who got knocked down. There does seem to be something about the combat, when I micromanage, that does not work out along with the problem that requires micromangement, when the npcs lose their target and stop attacking. I can understand why that one game mag gave the game a bad review... maybe it doesnt seem finished... but that seems to be the trend these days from my experience: games being released before they are finished...

[Dark83]

Wand of Cloudkill = dead golems/dragons (off the edge of the fog of war). Good times.

[konfeta]

Um, the Dragon Age combat system is nigh identical to WoW, barring some difference in statistical underpinnings.

[mmu1]

I found the DAO combat system terribly boring as well... I've actually replayed a good 20-30 hours of BG2 in October, since I was all psyched for DAO, and the end result was one hell of a letdown.

The biggest problems with DAO combat?

1. There is too much of it. Even if every encounter was great, the sheer volume is excessive. 

2. Most of the encounters are, in fact, rather dull and repetitive. How many times must I fight the group of 8-10 enemies consisting of 4-5 melee types, 3-4 archers and 1-2 mages, set up in the same defensive formation?

3. Even the obvious filler encounters can require some micromanagement, which feels like a huge waste of time.

4. Enemies have way too many hitpoints - especially the unimportant ones. Unless it has a name, it needs to die really quickly so I can move on to some enemy that actually matters. If the fighting in the in-engine cutscenes happened at the same pace as during actual gameplay, the intro movie and the battle of Ostagar would each be an hour and a half long.

BG2 had variety, and the designers understood that it was ok to have a decent amount of easy encounters that hardly required any party management, and were only there to make the build up to the important fights more atmospheric.

DAO breaks one of the most important rules of RPG adventure design - making encounters varied both in theme and difficulty, to keep the players from getting bored and complacent.

[yhibiki]

I'm kind of on the fence about the combat system. I've been playing it both on the PC and on the 360, and I think... playing as a mage works a LOT better on the PC. You just have a much better overview, and you can do the AOE spells (and not damage your allies) a lot easier. But the 360 version seems to have faster battles, in the sense that playing as a rogue, it cost me very little to get behind enemies and stab them. I can't say that for the PC version, because by the time I had positioned my rogue properly, the enemy had turned around already. (Obviously, I'm doing it wrong, but I've never been good at anything other than hack-and-slash.)



Oh, and battles are long, but they are certainly more bearable when playing on easy and the small enemies actually die after just one hit. It made the final few battles (mostly) a breeze, because one-hit-KOs are much more fun than "a million baddies that take forever to kill."

[konfeta]

false. WoW combat has spells/abilities that have very little effect on the choices building a character. WoW combat is all about items that give advantages based on whoring the market place and being a total loser.

We are obviously talking about different things with words "combat system." And you should really play WoW before you make such hilariously incorrect statements.

You are also  vastly overestimating the impact of player skill in this game. The skill ceiling is very low, you need very little ability to breeze through nightmare. And that is without abusing snorefest "strategery" like Taunt + Force Field, pot spam, or pulling enemies 1 at a time.

Modifié par konfeta, 16 décembre 2009 - 10:03 .

[Awildawn]

I love the combat system but I do think that enemies don't use it well enough. If adverse mages used cones of cold, earthquakes and blizzard as much as my party, all the characters would have had to either find the appropriate gear to resist this or improve its magic stat and I would have needed a templar and some magic spells to cancel the adversaries actions. In essence, it would have made the game a bit more hardcore.



So what I'm saying is : right system (even though I can't understand the taunt/threaten talent) but weak strategies from our adversaries. It may be the right system for a multiplayer game still.

[shoveljon]

To each their own. 

I really like the combat in this game. 

[mmu1]

Legacy_QuEsT wrote...

this game is for real gamers that have been playing games for a while. If you suck so much that you complain about difficulty than slide the scale to EZ and your problem will be solved, stop complaining about sucking as if that is Biowares fault.

If your reading comprehension and writing ability are anything to go by, I'm probably safe in assuming that I've been playing games considerably longer than you've been alive, and your parents are failing you by not monitoring your gaming purchases.

Either that, or you're an adult semi-literate moron.

Kind of a no-win situation for you either way.

Modifié par mmu1, 17 décembre 2009 - 12:26 .