340 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Renmiri1 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
 
But when people point out genuine problems with the points you advance, you ignore then.

Avoiding discussion isn't constructive.

Huh ?

A link to the post you are referring to would be helpful.. Constructive even 

The first of three in a row from me.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
I'd like DA3 to have some more puzzles or something. There are very few instances in DA:O or DA2 where I have to use my brain at all.

As long as it's not the Tower of Hanoi again:D

For the record, I liked having the Towers of Hanoi in every game.  It's a fun little puzzle, the solution is easy to document (for those players who don't like puzzles), and it had become a sort of BioWare trademark.

I kind of miss the Towers of Hanoi.

[Wulfram]

One observation about DA2 combat: it works considerably better if you're using Tactics to automate a lot of the stuff. Otherwise with the increased you have to pause constantly and it's just a huge hassle. And automated potion drinking helps with your mage getting ganked by people spawning behid you.

This is in contrast to DA:O where I tend to just ignore the tactics system.

Modifié par Wulfram, 10 septembre 2012 - 04:35 .

[zyntifox]

Plaintiff wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it wasn't.

I prefer stealth and puzzle solving mechanics like Dues Ex: Human Revolution for my fun as opposed to the combat, combat, and more combat all the DnD inspired games give us. Do you slaughter enemies through real time button mashing or through turn-based killing? Either way, it's the same s***.

This is pretty much my stance.

Combat is just what I do to get exp/gold/progress through the story. The precise mechanics are a non-issue. I prefer DA2 combat to DA:O because it's faster and therefore takes less time. Being more visually impressive is also a point in its favour.

I'd like DA3 to have some more puzzles or something. There are very few instances in DA:O or DA2 where I have to use my brain at all.

Never understood this fascination with fast/faster combat. It may be due to me having pretty awful reflexes, and thus not hitting the pause button in time, but i always felt the combat in DA:O was a nice realistic pace. I even tend to avoid the haste spell due to it making all the actions of my party too fast.

[Sigurdur]

hhh89 wrote...

Sigurdur wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

Sigurdur wrote...

Yes it was great fun. Combat in DA:O was often mind numbingly slow and boring. DA 2 combat was not perfect but a vast improvement.

But most importantly the character interaction was near perfect. And that´s what you play bioware games for.

What character interaction? The one between Hawke and his companions or the one between companions? Because for the former I preferred more the interaction in Origins.

Both,  The interaction in 2 is mostly large companion quests while Origins has the party camp and tiny companion quests.   I just think the DA:2 way is better.   I also think having a voiced protagonist gives extra weight to the whole thing.  

I was mostly referring to the dialogues between the PC and his companions (which I think it's better in DAO) , not the companion quests, but I see your point. I think that there were too many companion quests in DA2 in comparison of the side quests, but I liked most of them. But the number of dialogues with the companions outside the quests were too small.

Yes, more dialogue with companions outside of quests would have been great.  But overall i would still go for DA 2.  And Origins has Wynne the only dragon age companion that i dislike.

 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cstaf wrote...

Never understood this fascination with fast/faster combat. It may be due to me having pretty awful reflexes, and thus not hitting the pause button in time, but i always felt the combat in DA:O was a nice realistic pace. I even tend to avoid the haste spell due to it making all the actions of my party too fast.

They way the animations worked in DA2, "hitting the pause buton in time" couldn't ever really work.

In DAO, I tended to let my characters act, and when I needed to intervene I did so.  But in DA2, I'm not allowed to intervene whenever I want.  DA2 makes me wait until after the current attack animation finishes, and those can take quite a bit of time.  As such, by the time my character actually responds to my command it might now be too late.

DA2's speed combined with DA2's back-loaded animations worked together to make the game far less responsive in combat.  Maybe the increased speed would have worked if the animations had operated like they did in DAO, but BioWare changed both things so now we can't tell which caused the problem.

[eroeru]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It still seemed pretty irrelevant when discussing video game combat mechanics.

Especially given that WoW is actually an exceptionally math heavy combat system.

Not for the player it isn't.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

DA2's speed combined with DA2's back-loaded animations worked together to make the game far less responsive in combat.  Maybe the increased speed would have worked if the animations had operated like they did in DAO, but BioWare changed both things so now we can't tell which caused the problem.

 

Well said.

---

One more thing, the slower animations really were neat not only because they allowed for more flexibility and clarity, but they really inspired fear in fights, in my honest opinion.

It's like like Suspiria or The Shining vs modern horror bull-**** (you can figure out which is ][ by my opinion).

The former two got the pacing right, and gave a feeling of imminence and relevance via restrictions to the movement of the scene. Modern horror is so eclectic yet brain-free that if you don't get epilepsy, you'll not be scared. It just cluster****s meaningless signs of gore and speed, ruining the true horror aspect of them.
Have in mind I'm only talking about mainstream horror. The bad in today's horror scenes isn't because it's today (a recently seen counter-example from animation: "Ghost Hound"), it's because some aspects of the industry has deteriorated the mainstream, objectively and with bad reason to it (much like in video games, which isn't ruled first and foremost by gaming experts but rather essentially ignoramus salesmen). /rant

Also, believability via a gritty or naturalistic design helps heaps into the immersiveness.

Or take for example Resident Evil, or Silent Hill 2- they were slow! And this is how it worked. The feeling of the player-character not being an almighty god does need to come through in battle-situations, if you want thrill. Thrill comes only from the constant feeling of a possibility of demise (in combat specifically).

DA:O worked in this aspect. It held back a bit in this sphere, and delightfully so - it felt subtle yet immersing. And it wasn't for players with a non-existent attention span - yet ][ showed NO effort in inspiring attention, it worked rather painfully against it, especially so for a more needy computer player (who thankfully still holds some reins in this industry).

Modifié par eroeru, 10 septembre 2012 - 06:52 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Mr Fixit wrote...

Renmiri1 wrote...

Math or logic are not really combat to me. And to a very big number of people, of all ages. 8 million or so at least 

You *do* know, I hope, that in order to enter a military academy in many countries around the world, you have to pass a comprehensive mathematics entry exam?

Combat is NOT what WOW would like you to believe.

It's not what DAO would have us believe either.

Curious about how comprehensive the entry exam really is.

In the U.S., at least, the exam isn't an ENTRY exam (in the sense that you have to pass it in order to join), it's a PLACEMENT exam (in that how well you do helps set what positions they channel you into and/or how much remedial education you may need).

The physical conditioning test you DO need to pass (you get a set amount of prep time between when you sign on and when you have to achieve certain minimum physical standards).  They won't throw you out for being an idiot or an ignoramus, but they will pitch you out for being physically incapable of doing the work.

In any case, I really enjoyed both DA:O and DA2, but the combat got really boring past about the midpoint of the game for a number of reasons.  

1.) once you filled out a major tree and got the big ability you were shooting for, you just used it overandoverandoverandoverandover.  (On my rogue, I actually took all but 4 of my active talents off my quickbar entirely.  No kidding.)  All combats were basically the same, just longer or shorter versions.  There was nothing interesting going on, just more of the same stuff you'd done 500+ times already.

2.) In DA2, particularly, there were way too many foes with stupidly long health bars.  If you want to increase challenge, you leave their health the same and increase the DAMAGE they do.

3.)  There were no real tradeoffs where building your party to do X well meant doing Y poorly, and Y was actually important, so you were always scrambling for some combination that would let you make up for your deficiency.  Instead, the different  character types simply achieved the same goals (more damage output) via different means.  Warriors pumped base damage.  Rogues pumped crit.  Mages made use of cross-class combos.

4.)  In DA2, the only class with any real crowd control ability was . . . Rogues.  In Origins, at least, all 3 classes could kick out some pretty significant crowd control, which gave you a lot more combat options, which, of course, makes the combat more interesting.

There was a lot more stuff, too, but in the end it was just too much of the same stuff over and over and over, with little variation and basically no purpose.

[Renmiri1]

Hmmm Petrify, paralyze not CC ? Warrior also has 2-3 stuns iirc.

It's been a long time since I played Final Fantasy 12 but in my memory it managed to do tactics / pause based combat and active button mashing combat well enough. It's combat system is virtually identical to DAO and DA2 but has some better pacing and some extra moves- quickenings - and summons you could call, which I think made for a more enjoyable playthrough. At the time the combat system was very well liked.

[philippe willaume]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

Never understood this fascination with fast/faster combat. It may be due to me having pretty awful reflexes, and thus not hitting the pause button in time, but i always felt the combat in DA:O was a nice realistic pace. I even tend to avoid the haste spell due to it making all the actions of my party too fast.

They way the animations worked in DA2, "hitting the pause buton in time" couldn't ever really work.

In DAO, I tended to let my characters act, and when I needed to intervene I did so.  But in DA2, I'm not allowed to intervene whenever I want.  DA2 makes me wait until after the current attack animation finishes, and those can take quite a bit of time.  As such, by the time my character actually responds to my command it might now be too late.

DA2's speed combined with DA2's back-loaded animations worked together to make the game far less responsive in combat.  Maybe the increased speed would have worked if the animations had operated like they did in DAO, but BioWare changed both things so now we can't tell which caused the problem.

seconded

[Sabriana]

The combat in DA2 was singularly boring after the first couple of times/waves. Unless playing on insanity, the only ones that were capable of controlling a large part of those idiotic waves were the mages (non-friendly fire) and, as stated before, rogues.

In my personal opinion, the combat in DAO was far more challenging than the DA2, super-duper long health bar enemy combat. All I did was direct Hawke and Co to run around and whittle away. I won't even touch a certain enemy that challenged Hawke to one-on-one combat.

@ Allen
Are you perchance dissing on DAO?

[Renmiri1]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Renmiri1 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
 
But when people point out genuine problems with the points you advance, you ignore then.

Avoiding discussion isn't constructive.

Huh ?

A link to the post you are referring to would be helpful.. Constructive even 

The first of three in a row from me.

I didn't ignore it 

[Merlex]

Renmiri1 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Renmiri1 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
 
But when people point out genuine problems with the points you advance, you ignore then.

Avoiding discussion isn't constructive.

Huh ?

A link to the post you are referring to would be helpful.. Constructive even 

The first of three in a row from me.

I didn't ignore it 

Not to pile on here, but you ignored mine on page ten.

[upsettingshorts]

To answer OP's question:

Yes, but the rushed encounter design of DA2 was eventually crippling for me.

In the sense that, issues other people have beyond that are irrelevant (or indeed something I'd consider advantages) to me. The encounter design alone has kept me from enjoying the rest of the game as much as I'd like to.

While I think, taken as the sum of its parts, DAO has a lot more things that bother me on several levels, none in particular is as interest-killing as the waves and waves of trash mobs in DA2.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 10 septembre 2012 - 08:26 .

[Renmiri1]

Merlex wrote...

Three waves of enemies dropping from the sky, is hardly what i'd call unpredictable.

Did force you to be on your toes and not forget your healer

Merlex wrote...

I'd rather rely on my character's reflexes than mine. I have no problem with situational awareness or keeping my healer alive. Those should be part of any combat system. I just believe there are better ways of doing it than ninjas dropping from the sky, all around my party like i'm in a Jackie Chan cartoon.

Didn't bother me but sure, DA2 combat can be improved. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to start with

Merlex wrote...
I'm always active and pay attention during combat. Yes i like to pause, look around and pick targets. Yes i would like to position my party members. My hands are always on the keyboard during combat.

they might be, but on DAO they don't need to be and you actually have very little to do if you try. Drove me bonkers!

Merlex wrote...
One of the problems i had with DA2 combat was the tactic roles settings. Even if i set Anders to ranged, he would run into the middle of combat, or go off on his own to fight a squad. Varric would try and go toe to toe in melee. Thankfully Nexus has a mod that takes care of that.

Earlier you talked about the role of Warriors, as drawing in enemies. Sounds great when it works. I can't count how many times i had Aveline with full Bravery and Shield Defense on, and enemies just ran past ignoring her. Sometimes enemies got past her in doorways, and not just teleporting assassins.

Because of the lack of basic damage, she or Tank Hawk don't draw enough aggro. Taunt you say? Yea, with a twenty second cooldown. It's good for one maybe two uses. Does it make sense to you that a dagger does more damage per hit than a great sword?

Lol, I hear you!  It happens to me all the time while tanking instances on WoW with random PUG party members. I need snap aggro to lock the mobs on me before the idiotic DPS overaggro. Would it kill them to wait till i gather the mobs ? Would it kill the mage or hunter to move away from the boss' front paw cleave ? FFS, attack from a flank or from the back!

Being that "natural" intelligence players can behave as idiotic as the DA2 AI, I would say that the DA2 AI is pretty well done. Almost as good as the randon huntard, mage or suicidal rogues I see all the time.

Look at your tactics, maybe you have some settings forcing your mage or Varric to go melee. Or maybe one of those "predictable" waves of mobs just managed to sneak past your tank to pummel your range guys. Which happens. Taunt is not a cure all. That is what I like about DA2 combat. You need to keep your eye on the party and react fast. 

Merlex wrote...
Strategy, not quantum mechanics.

That was a dig at another poster who thought me saying I prefer dumbed down combat. I guess he has never seen theorycrafting 

Merlex wrote...
There's nothing to DA2 combat. You build your characters and companions basically the same way every time. DPS and crit damage. I like to play a controller mage sometimes, or a tank that can hold enemies while my ranged members pick them off.

And seriously, why do enemies have such large health bars, but do little damage and have very few abilities. Enemy mages were a joke, well exept the Qunari.

Makes battles last longer. They were never long enough to annoy me but maybe it does get on some players nerves.

Merlex wrote...
I felt that DAO combat didn't respond fast enough to my commands. But DA2 combat speed was way over the top. I thought i was in an arcade playing Gauntlet. It was fun at first, but quickly became the same old buttom mashing fest every time.

I liked Final Fantasy 12 a lot better than DAO, DAA or DA2, but I really don't enjoy the strategy part of the combat system, so I prefer WoW. Mass Effect isn't bad either. But I think it would be a disrespect to fans like you, who enjoy the strategy, to completely remove it from DA. I'm ok with having a hybrid combat system that allows us fast pace fans to have fun, while preserving the slow planned strategy stuff you guys prefer.

[upsettingshorts]

Come to think of it, only two things about DA2 strike me as significantly worse than DAO:

The camera.

The encounter design.

Everything else I'd consider at worst a lateral move, or at best an improvement. But I really don't want to have to plow my way through hundreds of generic enemies to get to the good parts again.

(I'm not counting repeated environments.  Nobody likes those.)

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 10 septembre 2012 - 08:32 .

[carine]

My main complaints: reused environments, waves of enemies, and the fact that it only took place in Kirkwall.

But despite those flaws, I thought the game was fun. I liked the companions and the storyline, so I enjoyed it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Come to think of it, only two things about DA2 strike me as significantly worse than DAO:

The camera.

The encounter design.

I'd also throw in the level design.  Regardless of how often the levels were reused, they weren't good levels.  Narrow corridors with only one path to follow are less fun that more open environments.  If we compare DA2's Wounded Coast with DAO's Korcari Wilds, we see a vast difference in level design.  Even the corridor-heavy part of DAO - the Deep Roads - offered wider corridors and occasional large open areas.

And, of course, I also think the voice+paraphrase was an unmitigated disaster that made DA2 relentlessly unfun.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I also tho find the level design, in regards to the leveling mechanism, in DA2 to be pretty broken. Attributes other that those particular to your class are useless. And, not to mention, totally irrelevant and nonsensical with the Auto-scaling feature. A level one warrior is strong with a strength of 20, but a level 20 warrior with a strength of 30 is incredibly weak. I'd rather have static attributes, set st the beginning of the game, that let me play a strong or weak character, a smart or dumb character, etc.

Baring that, I'd like a leveling system that involves non-combat skills and a way to level up skills instead of unlocking new ones constantly that just replace the old ones.

[Seboist]

It's one of the more fun mediocre games I've played like Devil May Cry 2 but that isn't saying much.

[Sylvianus]

Renmiri1 wrote...

Merlex wrote...

Three waves of enemies dropping from the sky, is hardly what i'd call unpredictable.

Did force you to be on your toes and not forget your healer

I'm sorry, that was just crap. There's nothing you can say to defend and justify that nonsense. Thanks. Now I remember why before all the patches I was bored with DAII combat. ( it is not even really fixed anyways... )

You are following a strategy, it is working, and suddenly waves of enemies are dropping from the sky, from nowhere, beside you and your companions.  Who the **** can take this seriously ? That's just not fair, that just makes no sense and it is absolutely boring. I hated the fact that I could die because of that glitch. Yes for me it is one. It is indeed hardly what we could call unpredictable lol. This isn't anymore about strategy there.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 10 septembre 2012 - 10:33 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

I on the other hand would pick DA2 especially given DAO's mages and rogues.

Agreed. DA2 actually made mages entertaining enough for me to play one.

I love playing mages. I tried playing one in DA2, and while I have to agree that the spells were kinda fun I stopped playing not even halfway through Act 1. I just had no fun at all being ignored as a mage by most everyone in the crazy-Templar-capital-of-the-world. I still might have found ways to enjoy it if I had been given the chance to, idk, disguise my character, but instead the game forced me to dress him in robes and let him carry a staff all the time. Also the little staff combat choreography got old pretty fast. Like, about the time we fought the ogre in the prologue.


Besides all that, no, DA2 wasn't what I'd call a "fun game".

[Plaintiff]

Cstaf wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it wasn't.

I prefer stealth and puzzle solving mechanics like Dues Ex: Human Revolution for my fun as opposed to the combat, combat, and more combat all the DnD inspired games give us. Do you slaughter enemies through real time button mashing or through turn-based killing? Either way, it's the same s***.

This is pretty much my stance.

Combat is just what I do to get exp/gold/progress through the story. The precise mechanics are a non-issue. I prefer DA2 combat to DA:O because it's faster and therefore takes less time. Being more visually impressive is also a point in its favour.

I'd like DA3 to have some more puzzles or something. There are very few instances in DA:O or DA2 where I have to use my brain at all.

Never understood this fascination with fast/faster combat. It may be due to me having pretty awful reflexes, and thus not hitting the pause button in time, but i always felt the combat in DA:O was a nice realistic pace. I even tend to avoid the haste spell due to it making all the actions of my party too fast.

I never paused during combat in DA:O, unless I wanted to make a sandwich. The possibility never occured to me. Unless you're talking about the radial menu, I guess? Is that what people mean when they talk about "pause and click" combat? I used the radial menu, sure, to access potions and skills that weren't on my hot buttons. Nothing stopped me from doing that in DA2 either.

There's nothing wrong with my reflexes, combat in Origins is just a chore. If moving through treacle is a "realistic pace", then I fully support Bioware's departure from realism in this intance.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 11 septembre 2012 - 12:58 .

[Yrkoon]

Renmiri1 wrote...

I think we have at least arrived to some conclusions: It seems we find DA2 combat please people who like having combat unpredictable,

Wait.... where did we come up with the notion that DA2's combat was unpredictable?   It was nothing of the sort.   it was  monotonously predictable.  Completely unvaried.

[Blastback]

It had it's moments, but ultimatly, playing through it felt more like a chore than entertainment.