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[Upper_Krust]

Hello there Ancalimohtar!

I'll maybe try and break this down into a few posts rather than one mega-post.

Ancalimohtar wrote...

Complaints

Encounter design problem, Part A: Repetitive, simplistic monsters

One of the many reasons BG2 was so awesome was how diverse and colorful the encounters were. Every enemy felt different. Every mage seemed to have a different set of spells. There were tons of special monsters that did special things--beholders, vampires, illithids, djinn, mephits, elementals, different types of golems (all of which had different attacks and strengths and weaknesses), liches, sahuagin, kuo-toas, the list goes on. Every encounter you had to figure out how to handle a bunch of unique, diverse characters, and balance your characters getting pounded from all sides (that's what she said).

Meanwhile, in DA the enemies are incredibly repetitive. The only thing that helps keep encounters themselves from being too repetitive is the different positioning of the enemies, and the fact that tactical positioning concerns are important in DA.

 
I myself have noticed this as well and gave a few ideas (over three or four posts) on expanding the bestiary...

http://social.biowar...index/579465/12
http://social.biowar...index/579465/13

...and in the mechanics behind improving monster design...

http://social.biowar.../index/744325/1

Even so, I'm pretty tired of the game's most popular enemy, Generic Darkspawn/Dwarf/Bandit/Undead Archer. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I could tell you a single difference between genlocks, hurlocks, "darkspawn," dwarves, human bandits, and undead, because they all do the same damn thing when given a bow (or a 2h, or a sword and shield).

Their uselessness is only exceeded by their numbers you could say. With so many enemies in the game attacking the same, they become a bunch of faceless mooks.

Darkspawn could really do with a re-envisioning from the ground up (mechanically speaking I mean). Lets see what I can come up with off the top of my head...

Genlocks should be sneaky and 'gobliny'. Good assassins rather than front line troops. Heavy use of poison and grenade-type weapons. Capable of stealth attacks with a good benefit for backstabbing. We can always have a screaming Suicide Bomber type of Genlock (hey it worked for Serious Sam, why not here) Genlock casters should concentrate on miscellaneous spells that harass and annoy (curses, slows) and summoning/animating.

Genlock #1: Genlock Assassin (basic Genlock with Stealth and poisoned weapons, uses hit and run tactics)
Genlock #2: Genlock Grenadier (carries potentially multiple grenade types: grease, fire, poison gas, duds, genies etc.)
Genlock #3: Genlock Suicide Bomber (Genlock Alphas, Dual Weapon style Master Assassins who explode when killed)
Genlock #4: Genlock Emissary (Genlock Alphas with Arcane, Blood Mage and Entropy spells)
Genlock #5: Genlock Forge Master (Genlock 'Omegas' who go around the battlefield setting traps. When they are slain, their spirit can transfers to crude golems ~ their sarcophagi)

Genlocks associate with Blight Wolves.

A note on poison (aka Nature Damage), it should really deal slow trickling ongoing damage rather than a single flat damage bonus. That way it gives the player something else to worry about in a fight.

Hurlocks should be strong, tough and 'orcish', military and regimented. Perhaps even attacking as a phalanx, or strong defensive line with shields giving them a great defense. With a large defense/armour bonus for the number of Hurlock allies adjacent to them. Imagine a 3x3 or even 4x4 unit of Hurlocks advancing like Spartans. We can always have Berserker variants who wield two-handed weapons and just charge right in. Hurlock Emissaries should concentrate on defensive and healing spells.

Hurlock #1: Hurlock Soldier (Basic Sword and Shield Hurlock, gains defense/armour bonus for every adjacent ally)
Hurlock #2: Hurlock Archer (Basic Bow wielding Hurlock...Th-thunk...take that Boromir)
Hurlock #3: Hurlock Berserker (Hurlock Alpha with Two-handed Weapon)
Hurlock #4: Hurlock Emissary (Hurlock Alphas with Arcane, Spirit Healer and Creation spells)
Hurlock #5: Hurlock General (Hurlock 'Omega', heavily armoured, huge shield, has a personal bodyguard around him)

Hurlocks associate with (Tainted) Brontos.

Sharlocks should be fast and frightening, and swarm characters. With a hefty attack/damage bonuses depending upon how many Shrieks are attacking one character. Personally I'd give them the overwhelm ability...though that ability in itself can be devastating, so to compensate I would make Shrieks a bit weaker - why they are tougher than Hurlocks (and Genlocks) when they derive from elven stock was a mystery to me anyway...we can always have Shriek Alpha's for special occasions after all. Sharlocks don't yet seem to have Emissaries, but if they did, they should concentrate on offensive spells and shapeshifting.

Sharlock #1: Sharlock Stalker (standard Sharlock, gains an attack/damage bonus for every ally adjacent to the enemy)
Sharlock #2: Sharlock Shriek (standard Sharlock, but with a stunning 'Shriek' attack...works a bit like a mind blast)
Sharlock #3: Sharlock Alpha (tougher Sharlock also gains the Overwhelm ability)
Sharlock #4: Sharlock Emissary (Sharlock Alpha with Arcane, Shapeshifter and Primal Spells)
Sharlock #5: Sharlock Master (Sharlock 'Omega', but has the ability to 'enslave' one of the heroes, and while enslaved, if you attack the Sharlock Omega, the hero takes the damage instead)

Sharlocks associate with Corrupted Spiders

Ogres are pretty good as they are, easily one of the games better enemies. Though I really would love to see a Regenerator or an Obliterator armoured variant with armour you have to break off before you can hurt the monster itself. If an Ogre Emissary existed, perhaps it would concentrate on personal buffs aiding it in combat.

Ogre #1: Ogre Brute (standard Ogre)
Ogre #2: Ogre Hurler (these Ogres, pick up boulders, stray darkspawn, your heroes and use them as missiles)
Ogre #3: Ogre Regenerator (Ogre Alpha, but with decent regenerative abilities)
Ogre #4: Ogre Emissary (Ogre Alpha with Arcane, Arcane Warrior and Spirit spells)
Ogre #5: Ogre Obliterator (Ogre 'Omega' encased in spiked armour, destroy the armour first then face the Ogre itself which has regenerative capabilities)

Ogres associate with Bereskarns.
...wheres that job offer Bioware?

80% of the game's enemies fall under one of: 1) melee, 2) archer, 3) shield melee, 4) emissaries/mages, and 5) animals (who are distinct only because they overwhelm). There are maybe five other non-boss enemies in the game total: 6) ogres, 7) revenants, 8) melee demons, 9) caster demons, and 10) fire demons.

I think thats being fairly generous. Rarely do you see Emissaries/Mages do much more than act like supplementary artillery (though maybe I need to start playing the game on Nightmare difficulty?).

Really, the only interesting enemies are bosses.

...and even then, tactically the bosses all seem like one-trick ponies, easily spammed when you have a winning 'formula'.

This makes 99% of combat about positioning. Don't get me wrong, I love tactical positioning concerns, and they've been sorely lacking in the NWNs and KOTORs, but they can't be the only tactical combat element. Unlike BG2, you never have to worry about immunities and specific resistances, or special attacks (poison/dots, confusion, paralysis, charm, etc.), enemies are rarely coming out of stealth and backstabbing you, and enemy casters never do anything truly dangerous except fireball and chain lightning. The two main sources of difficulty in DA are 1) in ambushes of numerical and tactical superiority (archers and mages up cliffs), and 2) bosses with incredible amounts of life and damage.

I noticed that resistances are either a virtual necessity (Archdemon, Gaxkang) or basically useless. In a way I sort of thought they were cheating of a sorts. I wonder if resistances should maybe be capped (at 50%) or have diminishing returns above 50% (any percentage above 50 is halved, any above 75 is quartered etc).

Secondly, Bosses should probably not be relegated to a single energy source...its just too easy to defend against.

I'll have more replies tomorrow...sort of got carried away on that Darkspawn redesigning above.

[TyroneTasty]

Mages’ talent trees need to be split into at least two builds, while warriors and rogues need to have their talent trees opened up. The way it is now, even though everybody, including mages, has to follow prereqs within a tree, mages can cherry-pick their trees from separate schools. You can’t have one character with amazing damage, CC, utility, and healing, all obtainable with ONE build. One solution, for example, would be to 1) add two more trees to each school to make them a bit more well-rounded, 2) add level requirements to every spell, and then 3) force a mage to have a primary and a secondary school. Spells learned from the secondary school have their level requirements doubled. There, bam.

I couldn't help but agree with a lot of what you said but this was my favorite part. I'm quoting in hopes that devs see some other enthusiasm for this idea. It would really make mage more interesting and require more thought in the builds along with balancing things out a bit. ed. However, as you said, there would definitely need more spells chooseable for this sort of thing to really work.

If nothing else, I hope to see some more exciting party battles that you referered to from BGII. Hunting down all those side party battles in BGII is always one of the first thing's I did, they were tactically challenging and had fun loot. Plus it just felt good that your party of adventurers was better than some other well equipped party. It's one of the more unique things I've seen in an RPG, especially since those type of battles are so rarely done. It truly is often the BIG guy with some cronies attached. Getting away from that is the best thing this game can do.

I enjoyed your write up. Well done.

@Upperkrust: I want to play your game! Those ogre variations, particularly the armor one, sound awesome.

Modifié par TyroneTasty, 25 janvier 2010 - 11:46 .

[Upper_Krust]

Hey TyroneTasty!

TyroneTasty wrote...

@Upperkrust: I want to play your game! Those ogre variations, particularly the armor one, sound awesome.

Thanks for the kind words, although the above is basically the tip of the iceberg. In the Bestiary thread I had several more Ogre variants including an Ogre BOSS...and I'm basically just getting warmed up.

Also I brainstormed up some new ideas for undead last night that really give the various undead types their own identity. I'll maybe add them to the Bestiary thread later tonight. I mean as the OP pointed out, so many of the monsters just attack the same way. Couple that with very little if any defensive differences, and you have a heap of 'samey' enemies, that attack the same, and are more or less vulnerable to the same tactics. You may as well be repeating the same fight over and over. But add in some of the mechanical differences I suggested in my previous post, and the Darkspawn really come to life as villains.

[soteria]

I agree with you about the lack of gear progression. I'm not a fan of having most of the best gear in the game as purchasable items rather than loot rewards for completing quests or killing bosses. I just don't like gold being important in this type of game; you should want to do quests for the unique rewards they offer, rather than for generic currency. Otherwise it just feels like grinding--oh I have to do X number of quests to get Y amount of gold so I can buy Z best-in-slot item.

I actually disagree here. It gives you some freedom in what sort of cool items you get. You're not going to get enough money to buy anything without completing at least one major plot area, and some of the best items even require that you advance the plot a certain amount before the vendor stocks the item. It means I don't have to do a certain part of the game first if I want specific items. Well, with the obvious exception of the gear that is quested or dropped.

[Upper_Krust]

Ancalimohtar wrote...

Complaints

Encounter design problem, Part B: Enemy ranks

That brings me to enemy ranks. I’m really not a fan of this need to neatly categorize something’s difficulty and broadcast it to the player; it probably comes from 4E, but is unnecessary and detracts from the game. More importantly, it forces a “boss + minions” encounter design philosophy.

I don't know if it 'forces' a boss + minions approach (although that seems to be what we've got), but I agree its a bad idea on multiple levels.

Primarily it handicaps the monsters and just plain makes the job of the player that much easier. It also sort of 'gives the leaders away', which doesn't hurt too much when its the obvious big armoured Hurlock coming at you. But when its (one of the rare) assassins surely they would try and hide their prowess as best they can. I know cut scenes with Bosses seems a staple by now, but what if you hold off on a cut scene until the villain is at half health. That way someone like Jarvia could hide amidst her gang for a while.

Whatever happened to the BG model of party-based combat? The last fight in BG1 was Sarevok, another fighter, a mage, and I think an archer or maybe second mage. And they were all quite tough. It wasn’t just super-Sarevok and a dozen archers chain stunning you. Mencar Pebblecrusher & Co. in Waukeen’s Promenade in BG2 had the dwarf, a mage, his imp familiar, a human fighter, and a backstabbing thief, all really deadly if you didn’t think carefully about how, and in what order you were going to deal with them. It wasn’t just super-Mencar and a dozen archers chain stunning you. The Twisted Rune had the lich, the beholder, the human mage, the vampire, and I think some kind of fighter. Think about that. Remember that fight? You had to plan out how you would deal with each one and their strengths and weaknesses. It wasn’t just super-freaking-Shangalar and a dozen freaking archers chain freaking stunning you.

Amazingly it never struck me just how limited in terms of encounter design Dragon Age really is. In fact with hindsight its bordering on the criminal how overlooked this variety is.
 

What fight in DA do you ever have to deal with an interesting mix of unique enemies?

The only one that even comes close is the Dragon Thrall battle when you enter the last castle. 9 Hurlocks (I think) + Hurlock Alpha + Hurlock Emissary + Genlock Emissary + Dragon Thrall was pretty fun.

In every boss fight, the same formula holds: the one boss is overpowered, and the minions are retarded. Bosses themselves have the same properties: short durations on all debuffs or status effects, always have a ton of life, always have high magic resist.  I really liked the Jarvia fight for example, that was quite fun; why not have a fight with Jarvia, Branka, a Revenant, and the blood mage slaver guy, and balance by reducing their damage and health by 50-75%? That would be fun and interesting.

The designers setting up the encounters really need a kick in the pants for missing this.

It would be interesting to see just how interesting battles would be with a selection of 4-5 mid tier difficulty enemies*. Or even 2-3 really tough enemies*.

*As you yourself note, you might have to depower some of the bosses (as currently designed) to get them into a 4-5 strong party. Even the idea of taking on 4 Revenants (or creatures that powerful) simultaneously would give 99.9% of players a dose of the proverbial 'two-bob bits'...and the other 0.1% are probably crazy people. I always wanted to see a 2 revenant battle, 3 might be pushing it.

However, variety is the spice of life, and while same type strong monsters would be a good occasional encounter, a mixed balance of four enemies: 1 mage, 1 rogue (or archer), 1 tank and 1 random could lead to all sorts of challenging battles.

[dkjestrup]

soteria wrote...

Ancalimohtar, what you described is exactly how you do choose what stat bonuses you get at level up. It's determined by what secondary skills you advance, as I recall. All you have to do is make sure you gain secondary skills that relate to the stats you want to advance. Building a character is counter-intuitive, but you do have control.

System Shock, it's 5 different armor models. Robes, Light, Medium, Heavy, Massive. Medium is not the same as light--it's what Alistair is wearing when you first meet him. Heavy is what most guards wear in the game. Definitely a weak spot in DA's art, whether it's three or five, though. At least the Legion of the Dead armor looks cool, right?

Actually there are two (!) massive armor meshes. The one used for Plate armor, and the one used for Dwarven Massive armor (and Blood Dragon, and Imperial Legion).

It's pretty pathetic though. Ancient Elven is just a reskinned heavy chainmail!

[Upper_Krust]

Ancalimohtar wrote...

Complaints

Mages are overpowered

First of all, the best party bar none is 3 mages + tank. Tell me what’s wrong with this picture: With 3 mages in my current party, playing on Nightmare, I have one-shot every single encounter so far, including Flemeth at level 11 (and that obviously only allowed me two mages). Standard routine is to run in Shale, taunt everything, and have the mages go to town with resist hexes, paralysis explosion, virulent walking bomb, and possibly entropic death, all while Shale is happily force fielded. There’s just no way to lose. If there are mages or scattered enemies, some AOEs or crushing prisons keep them occupied. It’s like PuzzleQuest Galactrix, once you put together the pieces to your build, you just execute the same tactics, hit the same abilities in the same order, and it’s an auto-win. It’s no longer fun, and I’m quitting this playthrough and restarting with a one-mage party. I like mages to be powerful and tactical characters too, but not i-win buttons.

One of the reasons for this disparity would seem to be that mages always hit. Now I think if you are going to have them auto-hit then you probably want them to be doing notably less damage than warriors/rogues. You can say the trade off is that Mages don't crit (at least I think they don't) but it doesn't really seem like a fair trade off. From my experience the mages seem to be dealing the same damage, never miss and are able to attack large groups of enemies simultaneously from distance.

The only ways to defend against spells seems to be to straight up resist it completely, or have reduced duration due to yellow or orange rank. Even in D&D where wizards were admittedly unbelievably powerful, spells had saving throws. In my go-to tactic above, none of those AOE spells are ever resisted by, say, half the targets.

I wonder if they should just give all basic enemies a flat 50% chance to resist (non-damaging) spell effects. Give Yellow name enemies a 75% chance and give Orange name enemies an 87.5% chance.

Nothing is ever immune to magic, or spirit damage (or any damage, except ice on revenants); nothing gets healed by spirit damage (you’d think maybe demons would be?); nothing is immune to paralysis; nothing shakes off debuffs except by rank; nothing teleports or charges my mages forcing them to use spells defensively; enemy mages never even start off combat with spell protections, which by the way don’t exist; there are no legitimate anti-mage enemies in the entire game; the list goes on.

 
That seems more to do with poor monster design than the fault of the mages. Though the two fuel the disparity - which is the point you are making.

Staves do too much damage. Being at range is just better than being melee to begin with, particularly when dragons and ogres and revenants are all melee-unfriendly. At least in BG2 your mages were pretty docile after expending their spells.

Yes there are no really powerful ranged attacks coming from monsters or enemy casters.

I wonder if a good rule of thumb, using average character builds should be...

Mages ~ dealing about 0.5 damage per level (large area spell), 1 point of damage per level (cone) and 2 points per spell level (single target).
Rogues ~ dealing about 2 (or 1+1 Dual) points of damage per level, or 4 points with a backstab
Warriors ~ dealing either 2 points (Archers), 3 points (Sword & Shield); 2+2 points (Dual Weapon Style) and 4 points (Two-handed Weapon).

So at Level 20

Mage ~ deals 10 points with Blizzard (enemies have the option of leaving the area before sustaining more damage), 20 points with Cone of Cold and 40 points with Lightning Bolt
Rogue ~ deals 40 points of damage, or 80 with a backstab
Warrior ~ deals 40 points (archer), 60 points (Sword & Shield), 40+40 points (Dual Weapon) and 80 points (Two-handed Weapon).

Now the question becomes how many spells and talents dramatically break those averages even with typical character builds?

Spell combos are great and lots of fun, but they’re way too powerful, especially since 1) they encourage mage-stacking, and 2) non-mage talent trees don’t have combos. In fact, there’s just way more synergy for magic than for martial. You have negative resist hexes, you’ve got gear that boosts spirit (or cold or whatever) damage, you’ve got spell combos, and warriors and rogues are left in the cold.

Well, melee fighters have flanking, which is sort of double-teaming. I was thinking that you could have bonuses to attack or defense similar to those I suggested for the Darkspawn in my post last night.

Mages actually have really good defenses, while other non-tanks don’t. An entire room could be coming at Morrigan, and with one cone of cold or sleep I can run her safely away. Put down a glyph of repulsion and she’s basically untouchable by melee. Sten only really has pommel strike and then he’s screwed. Not like his armor or defense is going to help any. Either give them better armor and defenses, or give him an aoe stun or aggro drop, or maybe some kind of rage ability that lets him take only 25% damage for a short while.

Its pretty clear that some spells are broken. You mention Force Field, that should have a finite hit point total. I keep hearing about Mana Clash (haven't tried it yet myself).

Any mage can get healing with one talent point. Really? Combining wizard and cleric wasn’t enough, you had to give the single defining characteristic of divine magic essentially for free? And with spirit healer, group heal is another single talent point. In fact, this is part of a greater problem:

Agreed, although it does give great flexibility for single caster parties. I really like your idea that Mages should have one Primary 'school' and the others should be secondary - though rather than increase Level restrictions, I would instead simply make those secondary spells operate at half effectiveness. Maybe once a Mage has maxed out one spell school they can choose another as their primary. That way Mages would gravitate towards Necromancer, Elementalist and so forth.

The game really does force warriors and rogue down one (weapon related) path, and its clearly unbalanced for mages to be able to cherry pick the best spells from each source.

[StarMars]

zomg, the posts here rival the texts of Planescape: Torment.



This should be a good read if you have free time.



Thanks for the bump, just saw this one.

[Ancalimohtar]

Thanks for everybody's input recently. I've been out of the country, but I'll respond to some of the great ideas brought up when I get a chance.

[Aldandil]

I remember that I read this thread when it was just posted a while ago, and thought that it raised a few good constructive points of criticism, nitpicked a bit, and then I thought little more of it. Now I've played the game a bit more, reflected a bit on it, forgotten that I read this post in the first place, then I read the post again and realized how many marks this review actually hits. I don't agree with all of them, but I was thinking about writing a post about small issues with the gameplay when I read this and I noticed that this post review mentioned pretty much everything I was about to say. It's a very well written post indeed! I'll go over the views of the OP, which I agree with in general, shout out when I think something is especially true and also when I disagree. Hopefully, it will make it easier for the developers to see what the players find important if we all repeat the same things .

The Pros
It's always unfair that you never spend a lot of time talking about what's good, but (and I know this sounds ingratiating) it really would take too much time to go through it all. It is a great game. For example, I agree with every single one of the items on the OP's list of good stuff about the game. What will follow here is mostly just small, technical issues that would (in my opinion, as always) make the game even better.

The tactical camera
This is definitely one of the most important criticisms. The tactical camera is great, but it is rendered pretty much useless by having it be tied to your party-members in such a limiting way. It must have at least a long enough leash to cover every enemy involved in a fight. This one change would improve the gameplay enormously, at least for me who would love to use the tactical camera more. A part from that, I'd like to say that everything mentioned on this subject in the OP is spot on.

Transparent rules/mechanics
Before my latest playthrough, I installed the mod called "Detailed tool-tips" and a lot of stuff became clear. To me, the game became a lot better when I had installed that mod. I would like to see comparable information in a possible sequel, it really made things graspable!
I also found a mod that let me see the items I received. Also a huge improvement. I do want to know what type of quest rewards I receive, for example, and I'm not too keen on having to search my inventory to find out. I haven't found a mod that will tell me how much XP I receive as a reward for finishing a quest, but that is something I miss as well. These things would be great in a sequel.
The OP really misses the combat log a lot. I'm not sure if I do, I sometimes would like to know how much damage my characters do individually (because it's very difficult to evaluate that part of the character's performance in DA:O), and that's when I feel the need for a combat log. I'm not personally very interested in this, it's only an occasional urge, but I can see why people would like to have such data. Some of my other issues, such as my personal need to learn exactly how much XP I get for finishing a quest, could be solved by a combat log, so in that sense it could be useful, but if there had been other solutions for the XP/received items type of feedback, I wouldn't miss a combat log much.

Enemy Diversity
While the OP states that the enemies are incredibly repetitive, I must admit, this didn't bother me much. During my first playthrough, I had enough problems dealing with the rank and file enemies to keep me from noticing that they were very similar, and later on, I'm able to move through them fast enough that it doesn't really matter. Based on that, I must say that the abilities of the basic canon fodder enemies doesn't really bother me at all. However, the OP has a point about the fact that the enemies aren't really very different to the eye. We fight darkspawn, we fight corpses and we fight demons. I realize while writing this that this isn't exactly true, because there are a few more types of enemies, but since it still feels as if you're only fighting enemies from these three general categories, they are overused. I realize, of course, that there's a diversity within these categories, and that with current day 3D-modeling, it's not as easy to produce a large number of different enemies as it was when making BG for instance, but still...

Enemy ranks
This didn't bother me at all, really, but the OP has a point when it comes to the party vs. party fights. One example of this could be found in the Sacred Ashes quest, fighting your mirror images, and it was both challenging and a lot of fun. I don't think there's a problem with the boss+minions setup, and I don't think having ranks forces this, but I do think that the alternative of fighting four reasonably powerful opponents instead of one powerful and ten pushovers is underused in the game. Imagine a Ser Cauthrien fight where Ser Cauthrien herself is not super-human, but rather accompanied by her party of fellow Loghain lovers, and we have a clash between two groups of four. I think there's both dramatic as well as tactical potential in the use of party vs. party combat.

Aggro and tanking
I didn't mind the MMO-style tanking. Keep going with that as far as I'm concerned.
I do agree that the tanks should have the ability to block a door, though (and enemies should be able to do the same), possibly by some form of a "hold the line"-mode or whatever. As it is now, only a mage can effectively keep a door blocked, something that you really would want your tank to be able to do, which leads us on to the next point.

Mages are overpowered
I think so too. Nothing else to add on the matter.

Complaints about the setting
I'm pretty pleased with the setting, even with regards to things that bothered the OP. I don't mind the real world culture-flavored nations, for instance. I don't find the dwarves to be very stereotypic either, I find the caste system and the ruthless politics to be refreshing enough. Good point about the Dalish, though, I don't think it would have hurt to make them a little less well off.

Other complaints
So far I've kept myself to commentating on the OP in an attempt to stay on topic. Here's just a few off the wall opinions:
- Fereldan atmosphere. I couldn't find anything in Ferelden (that is, the purely human areas) that really grabbed me. This is mostly about the actual areas, the graphics, music, etc. and not so much about the writing even though the writing didn't make up for anything when it comes to this. My main issue lies with Denerim and Lothering which I found to be very bland. Neither of the areas had any particular "personality" to them, when it comes to looks (architecture and what not) or environmental features. Wasn't it possible to copy some cute little hamlet somewhere when designing Lothering and the old town from some random European city when doing Denerim? The look and feel of these areas felt lacking to me. Redcliffe felt a lot better, in part because there was a sense of urgency storywise, but also because the village had very distinct features, being perched on a cliff as well as on poles in the water. Lothering and Denerim could have done well with something similar.
- I realize this is something that a lot of people might not want, but I would have loved to have a cutscene for the party banter. I sometimes missed it because I had already opened up a conversation by the time I had noticed that my companions were bantering. Since party interaction is one of the best things about DA:O, this shouldn't be allowed to happen . I also think the party camp should be an arena for party bantering, considering that the writers can be pretty sure that all the characters will be in one place there.

I'm sorry about the long post, but based on the well-structured and well written initial post, this thread seemed like a good place for constructive and concrete criticism and I hope that is what I have presented (with the possible exception of the "Fereldan atmosphere"-argument, being very subjective). If you've come this far, I'd like to say thanks for reading!

[shree420]

Upper_Krust wrote...

Agreed, although it does give great flexibility for single caster parties. I really like your idea that Mages should have one Primary 'school' and the others should be secondary - though rather than increase Level restrictions, I would instead simply make those secondary spells operate at half effectiveness. Maybe once a Mage has maxed out one spell school they can choose another as their primary. That way Mages would gravitate towards Necromancer, Elementalist and so forth.

The game really does force warriors and rogue down one (weapon related) path, and its clearly unbalanced for mages to be able to cherry pick the best spells from each source.

This. I think introducing spell schools would be a way to limit mage power somewhat. It's a bit contradictory for someone to cast spells from Creation and Entropy with equal ease. An Entropy mage is essentially a necromancer - what is he doing casting Creation spells with ease? There's no morality in magic, but I felt the types of entities a mage uses for these two schools would be so very different. You'd lean towards some spells, and away from others.

Alternatively, allow all mages to cast from all schools, but the more diverse the selection, the weaker each spell is.

[Zugin]

Completely disagree about Dwarfs. Cast system is first time anything like that is applied to Dwarfs that I am aware of.. Ancestor worship and "living acestor" idea, very cool. Legion of the Dead is excellent. I love deep roads in general, Broodmother section being the best episode in the game. Provings.. whole castless origin and Gladiator moment I love the dwarfs in this game



Elves.. Alienage is a great idea, Dalish are very meh though. They should have went further and make it darker, make large portion of elves to be slaves/indebted servants. Allow dark/evil character to buy/sell slaves?



I am not really against mages being OP. Its a single player game, not really a big deal. Lore wise mage supposed to be incredibly powerful, so thats fine I think.

[shree420]

'Lore'-wise, mages wearing just robes should go down in one arrow hit or melee strike. 'Lore'-wise, any mage should have a 10% chance of turning into an abomination on casting a spell.

I don't think mages are OP absolutely; they're OP relative to the other two classes; it's more like rogues and warriors are not as powerful as the mage. Warriors should be able to shrug off damaging spells to some extent through talents; right now there's no way except the templar route to do that. They should be able to control the battlefield far more easily, with AOE stuns and knockdowns as part of their Warrior set rather than as skills within schools. For example, a single target stun could be part of the Warrior set, and using it would trigger the appropriate animation based on the weapon you're using.

The rogue backstab should be able to one-shot unarmored targets like mages. In BG2, there was nothing as fun as having Yoshimo sneak up and take out the Sewer party's mage with a x5 backstab and then bringing in the cavalry.

IMO, Bioware should strengthen the Rogue and Warrior rather than nerf the Mage.I do think spell schools should be introduced, not as a major nerf, but as something consistent with Mage schooling.

De-specialize the Warrior/Rogue talents as far as possible, and specialize the mage somewhat.

Modifié par shree420, 09 février 2010 - 06:39 .

[ReshyShira]

In my opinion the only real flaw in the game I found was the cookie cutter plot. There's no new interesting races, just the standard human, elf and dwarf. And the difficulty was screwy at times.

[Ancalimohtar]

Blast from the past bump.

[Orchomene]

I too find that the aggro and tanking system to be a real backward step to the concept of interesting enemy AI.

Ok, may be it's useful in MMO, I don't really know 'cause I don't play such games.

But in a single player, seeing enemies targeting a heavy armoured warrior with a weapon and shield and neglecting a mage that has no armor, few health and a potential high offensive capability is very dumb.

A tank is a tactical role (placing the warrior in front of enemies, physically blocking) and not some mystical power that allows to transform an intelligent enemy into a dumb one that goes from the most defensive target instead of the most offensive.



Even animals would better attack an enemy that has no armor instead of a steel can.

[Sheanos]

Gabochido wrote...

Great feedback that will surely help us improve
I may have some more coments later on but right now I have a deadline to get to!

Thanks for using this feedback to improve Dragon Age 2. Particularly the encounter design.

Modifié par Sheanos, 25 mai 2011 - 03:37 .

[Kaiser_Wilhelm]

Very good review, though I must disagree on some of your complaints.

First off, I like the whole "repetitive monsters" idea. This isn't some dungeon crawler where you fight horrifying monsters of every calibre, this is a war-themed setting. Your overall goal is to war with and best the Darkspawn armies. Fighting generic Darkspawn gives it more of a "our armies are fighting theirs" feel. This is especially effective in battles where you have NPC soldier allies. They slash away at Darkspawn, and vice-versa, it all feels less like a linear grind and more like an actual war, where your decisions matter to its outcome. Same goes for bandits and other such enemies. It all feels like war. Good enemy and allied AIs alike help this too. The fact they each have abilities also is good also. I dislike the idea of simply hacking through endless cannon fodder, but I likewise dislike the idea of fighting gigantic monsters and dying in every encounter. The basic rank-and-file and their decent AI provide enough challenge that they keep you on your toes and even win sometimes, but you still feel like a powerful Grey Warden, not some pitiful grunt going into the maw of hell every time a battle occurs.

And the accents and basis upon European cultures. I for one like the accents and cultures implemented and how they influence the game. You say "it's a homebrewed world, why recycle countries?" Do you expect Bioware to just make some weird accent up, or do you expect them to use effective, pre-existing ones?

Modifié par Kaiser_Wilhelm, 26 mai 2011 - 02:01 .

[Graunt]

The original post just has me scratching my head, wondering if the TC is minimizing just how familiar Origins really was because of the annoying technical issues that were mostly fixed when Bioware upgraded to a new engine.  Pretty much the entire time I played the game it just felt like NWN2.5 to me through and through, but with even less customization...and they didn't even make that game.

Don't get me started on the AI either--that also gave me nightmare flashbacks of the awful AI from NWN2.  From the start the "tactics" seemed to be nothing more than an expanded edition of the user created AI mod for NWN2 that somewhat circumvented the silliness, or lack of action.  For Origins, this seemed like nothing more than player controlled AI tailoring since Bioware has such a hard time getting even acceptable AI (for party memebers) it seems.  The tactics almost never worked properly beyond using a potion.  The majority of the time there was always a delay and either the action would happen very late, or not at all, so the game turned into a manually controlled pause-fest anyway, eliminiating the entire point.

I also don't understand why the TC praises the direction of Mages either--because Bioware went to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum of the issues he was having.  They were much stronger than their pen and paper counterparts in this game due to the other classes being so much weaker.  Maybe Bioware will finally get it right with Dragon Age 3.  One can only hope.

Modifié par Graunt, 31 mai 2011 - 08:53 .