509 replies to this topic

[bEVEsthda]

You'll have some difficulty getting a valid understanding about what you question, because the people that could give you answers are no longer here.

 

I'll try to sketch you the gist of it: The strongest component of the dislike comes from that DA2 changed DA. And changed it into something, a large and traditional part of the audience had zero interest in (hence they're no longer here). The change is very dramatic to anyone who plays DA:O for the role playing experience. This is not about semantics. Arguing by trying to redefine or define "role playing" doesn't help. The experience that existed in DA:O and in previous Bioware games is gone from DA2. DA2 is just like any Japanese cinematic game. A type of game a large and traditional part of Bioware's audience has absolutely zero interest in. Those, however, who come to DA from, for instance, the FF series and alike, don't even notice the difference.

 

Together with this change, a lot of other things also changed. The change in mood and change in aestethics for instance. DA lost its soul and became something (in my opinion) despicable. Changes in a brand are wellknown hazards. It's one of the pillars of marketing science: You do not change a brand to appeal to a different segment of customers! If you want that, you create a new brand. It might well be that the ridiculous and contemptible combat animations of DA2 wins some new fans, who think such things are cool or fun, and play videogames to experience such. But the established audience of DA:O mostly finds such things insultingly tasteless. And this is just scratching the surface. A lot want symmetric combat rules, for instance, and DA2 definitely didn't go that route.

 

So DA2 changed DA, from something that is a fairly rare, and special type of game, particularly for such large and wellmade game, to something that is a much more typical videogame, more aiming towards the core videogame market, that all other videogames also targets. So a large part of DA:O fans, and thus DA franchise fans, realized that they had just lost their dream game franchise. Thus they reacted very strongly. That strong reaction is not really a measure of DA2's own qualities as a game. It is a measure of how DA2 changed the DA franchise, into something that was a most unwelcome and disappointing surprise for a large part of the DA:O audience.

[Jigglypuff]

da2 is so fun to play, the fights come alive as opposed to da but da had a stronger storyline and really fleshed out the characters.

[Ferretinabun]

Pretty much what bEVEsthda said.

 

Classic RPGs are sadly dying (or, at least, changing). Origins was very reminiscent of classic games such as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, and showed that CRPGs can still work and be brilliant nowadays, and people loved it. Then DA2 popped up and was every inch the Action RPG that Classic RPGs are dressing up as these days - the sort of games where every combatant does backflips and pirouettes mid-battle, where every woman looks like a baywatch babe, and something must explode every ten seconds. It is a shift that is soundly detested by fans because it reeks of commercialism - of corporate suits pumping these things into their games because in their minds they are 'cool' and 'that is what gamers want', rather than really understanding what makes a good game. And DA2 wasn't even a terribly well done ARPG at that - as others have noted, it was clearly rushed. In short, it felt very much like a shabbily put-together cash-in game that totally misunderstood what was good about the original.

 

That is not to say that it doesn't have its merits. Personally, I find the story enjoyable most of the time. The combat skill trees were a huge improvement. And I really like the IDEA behind it - several years in the same city to see how it changes with your choices and how they play out over time. I wouldn't really say it was a BAD game, exactly, but this, I think, was the reason for the initial backlash against it. 

[wolfhowwl]

The above posters covered well the radical shift and the alienation that the more traditional fans felt.

 
bEVEsda mentions that it is "like any Japanese cinematic game" and that those "who come to DA from, for instance, the FF series and alike, don't even notice the difference." It is true that DA II leans more in that direction however many of those games manage to succeed at what they are trying to be and DA II does not.
 
I remember talking with a college roommate who had played Origins and had a long history with WRPGs and Japanese games. He wouldn't have been bothered by the huge shift to a different kind of game he also enjoyed if only what Bioware delivered had been good.
 

So why do people think DA2 is so bad compared to DA:O?

 

That's the thing with DA II, when many people are calling it bad they aren't just saying it's a "bad Dragon Age game." Setting aside the hurt feelings of the old fans or comparisons to Origins, Dragon Age II is still a bad game all on its own.
 
Compared to other ARPGs the combat is very lackluster. Of course the horrid encounter design with the teleporting waves crushes any chance of the combat system being given a fair shake by players. Is there any way to describe the enemies appearing out of thin air as anything other than hot garbage? Rather than improving the strategy element, Bioware destroyed it. I hope you find that tolerable because the game has tons of pointless filler combat.
 

Obviously everyone knows about "the cave" and the disgraceful endlessly repeated environments. You might be more forgiving than others. The game is still horribly lazy with an ugly, dead, empty city populated by literal carbon copies of people, nailed to a single spot.

 

The idea of moving chronologically through different time periods in a single city would be interesting if it had been used as anything more than an excuse to keep the player trapped in Kirkwall, a city that remains static across a decade of supposed turmoil. Bioware couldn't even be bothered to change the season and have some snow to at least give us something new to stare at. 

 

At least FFXIII despite its other faults was still a pretty game. We can't even say the same about Dragon Age II (insert pic of low res elf here among other atrocities).

 

But we can forgive all that if the writing is good, right? Well no it isn't.

 

It actually helped kill the game because nothing made any god damned sense.

 

The plot is an unfocused mess with a string of things happening with no overarching goal or story.

 

Characters go insane for no compelling reason other than to provide another boring fight or killing off a loose end so Bioware doesn't have to create more content.

 

The game tries to develop the Mage/Templar issue from Origins but manages to hilariously dumb it down leaving many players without a reason to care about the conflict.

 

While Bioware games have always had characters follow certain archetypes, Dragon Age II feels like a parody of a Bioware writing with characters that are at best shallow sketches and at worst incredibly poorly conceived and developed characters. This could be cut slack if there was a compelling main plot arc but there isn't. The game is supposed to be a personal tale and it fails at the relationships and characters.

 

Origins was by no means a perfect game but it had its moments and as a sum of its parts was pretty good. In contrast Dragon Age II is a fascinating game just for how badly it manages to fail at everything it tries to do and probably should be remembered as one of the great blunders of the seventh generation.

 

While there were certainly worse games, those were not made by a then-respected studio who went from creating one of the better WRPGs of recent years to destroying their franchise and reputation with such amateurish colossal mistakes and turning out such a shallow, rushed, tedious mess of a game.

 

Still it could be worse. Now Two Worlds? That was a disaster!

 

 

 

I will second bEVEsda's statement that you're not going to find the answer from those people as many people who didn't like Dragon Age II are no longer here (or were never on the forums to begin with). There was a large exodus from the fanbase after Dragon Age II's release and I believe its sales never managed more than half of Origin's five million.

 

Outside of the BSN, the game has a mixed reputation at best and is a toxic laughingstock at worst.

[eglantine]

I really enjoyed DA2, but I was also really disappointed. It didn't feel finished.

 

It was set up so well! This story within a story, being told by an unreliable narrator, spanning the same cast over a span of 10~ years... Just hearing that, I was excited. And the story was fine. Yeah, there were parts that had me rolling my eyes (the whole mother sub-plot. Useless character death with practically no character- or story-building after, ugh.), but it was fine. The characters, great. I still love the characters and their relationships with each other. 

 

The problem was, you have all this set up... and no payoff.

 

The game spans years, but nothing really changes. It was an opportunity to show a real development in characters, and to show real change in Kirkwall, even if just cosmetic. If there wasn't a chapter break, you'd be hard pressed to see any real change. You move into a new home, but life basically goes on as usual.

 

You should have felt Kirkwall going through a great change, foreshadowing the craziness that will spread across Thedas in DA:I. You should have felt the tension simmering under the surface building and building into a crazy boil, but instead it's just... nothing. Small moments of excitement stretched thin between long treks along a faceless coast or through reused caves...

 

 

I still liked it! But you can't say a game is great because the idea of it was great. It has to deliver. So it was just... alright.

[CuriousArtemis]

People who dislike DA2 dislike it because they played DA:O first and DA2 is very different. And some like me who played DA2 first don't like DA:O as much because, again, it's so different. That's all.

[Ferretinabun]

I really enjoyed DA2, but I was also really disappointed. It didn't feel finished.

 

It was set up so well! This story within a story, being told by an unreliable narrator, spanning the same cast over a span of 10~ years... Just hearing that, I was excited. And the story was fine. Yeah, there were parts that had me rolling my eyes (the whole mother sub-plot. Useless character death with practically no character- or story-building after, ugh.), but it was fine. The characters, great. I still love the characters and their relationships with each other. 

 

The problem was, you have all this set up... and no payoff.

 

The game spans years, but nothing really changes. It was an opportunity to show a real development in characters, and to show real change in Kirkwall, even if just cosmetic. If there wasn't a chapter break, you'd be hard pressed to see any real change. You move into a new home, but life basically goes on as usual.

 

You should have felt Kirkwall going through a great change, foreshadowing the craziness that will spread across Thedas in DA:I. You should have felt the tension simmering under the surface building and building into a crazy boil, but instead it's just... nothing. Small moments of excitement stretched thin between long treks along a faceless coast or through reused caves...

 

 

I still liked it! But you can't say a game is great because the idea of it was great. It has to deliver. So it was just... alright.

 

I heard DA:O described as a cliched story told very well, while DA2 was an innovative, clever story told badly. I think that pretty much sums up my stance.

[Swoopdogg]

Never listen to Bioware fans. 90% of the time we're overreacting.

 

I enjoyed DA2. Heck, I loved it.

 

Yes, there were some cheap, over-simplified elements, such as *LOUD COUGH* the reuse of environments and the overly drab textures of kirkwall. But I liked the combat, I liked the characters, I liked the story. I got my money's worth and then some. Just because some fans are disappointed doesn't mean you personally won't enjoy it, and it certainly doesn't mean it's a bad game. DA2 is a great game in fact. Disagree if you like. We all have our opinions, and at the end of the day, your own opinion is literally the only one that matters. After all, you're the one playing the game.

[thegreywarden95]

I don't know, DA 2 just seemed like a money grab to me, considering it had almost nothing to do with the first game. 

 

And also, Anders is a moody depressive who annoys the heck out of me, and Fenris is a big time hypocrite. My two least favorite companions from any game I've ever played.

[KaiserShep]

I don't know, DA 2 just seemed like a money grab to me, considering it had almost nothing to do with the first game. 

 

And also, Anders is a moody depressive who annoys the heck out of me, and Fenris is a big time hypocrite. My two least favorite companions from any game I've ever played.

 

Thing is, DA:O is pretty much a self-contained storyline. It's about the Blight, and it's pretty much ended at the conclusion of the game. Unless BioWare were to decide to jump another few hundred or thousand years to the next Blight or do a "gotcha the Blight really ain't over" story for the next game (which I feel would have been pretty horrible), any story they do in the next game is going to carry over some world state stuff, but little else. Any game that comes after Inquisition could possibly have nothing to do with the previous three games altogether, since more than a decade has gone by at that point.

 

As for Fenris being a hypocrite, I'm not sure I see how. He talks up a lot of stuff about mages, but you can convince him to put all of that aside if you wanted to. Anders, on the other hand, shows his true colors if you decide to be evil and give Fenris back to Danarius. He's the only companion to actually be glad for you to sell someone back into slavery.

[Andre]

I enjoyed DA2 a lot more than DA:O. The main reasons being :

 

- The story. DA:O was announced as mature and dark. Weeell, there were blood splashes, certainly    . But apart from that, you got the orcs - I mean the blight, as an overused "good vs. evil" plot element, and an underused racial discrimination (playing elf or dwarf did not make me feel rejected by human society).

 

In DA2, it's a much more personal story, all about walking your own path, and there is no clearly evil side (apart from qunari, perhaps) - but in the end, mages and templars are not evil, and you can take sides with the first, the other, or none.

 

- The fights. Easy mode was great for enjoying the story. When I wanted to explore the game again, taking my time, I played Nightmare. And that was great. In DA:O, the fights are like a game in the game - long, strategic, interesting, demanding... but maybe too much so. And it broke the game's pace so much that I tried to avoid fights more than I wanted to skip some cinematics.   In DA2, the fights start and end smoothly, and you quickly get back to story.

 

- The dialogue wheel. Unlike DA:O or Mass Effect, it's not the primary "badass/candy" choice. You get to be cynic, hard, touchy, diplomatic... Much more immersive and 'realistic' (in the 'I kill dragons realistically' way    ).

 

- The team. The horror of DA:O : having to manage the character sheets of all my teammates. I quickly learned to hate them all for having to dress them before each mission. In DA2, the personal boosts you can trip over or buy in market are a smart way to improve the team in a simple way.

 

- The pretty colors.   There is so much more variety in armors, clothes, weapons, in DA2. I like it colourful. In DA:O, you play lots of people dressed in brown. Except Morrigan of course. And the dog. Wait, no - it's brown too.

 

OF COURSE, thse are all personal opinions, and I can definitely understand why people love DA:O or hate DA2. But as for me, I don't think I'll play DA:O again, while I regularly get back to DA2.

[Zazzerka]

As for Fenris being a hypocrite, I'm not sure I see how. He talks up a lot of stuff about mages, but you can convince him to put all of that aside if you wanted to. Anders, on the other hand, shows his true colors if you decide to be evil and give Fenris back to Danarius. He's the only companion to actually be glad for you to sell someone back into slavery.

 

Interesting. With that, Anders rises above Fenris on my "characters that are kind of a dick" scale. I'm no fan of the elf, but there's no need to be so smug.

[Mike3207]

Expectations. People were expecting DAO2, and they got something completely different. DA2 wasn't terrible, but it came far short of what most expect for a sequel.It just didn't come close to DAO.

[CronoDragoon]

Game was too short and ended without a resolution of the main conflict.

 

The main conflict being mages vs. templars, or Kirkwall mages vs. Kirkwall templars? Either way, failing to negotiate peace has led to a more interesting world-state than whatever solving the mage/templar conflict in Kirkwall could have done. First, would a resolution have even been possible? Meredith was right: Kirkwall was up to its ears in blood mages. Leadership butting heads wasn't the only issue.

 

But more than that the mage/templar conflict - or at least certain aspects of it - are rooted in systemic problems with the circle. Solving Kirkwall's immediate problems wouldn't have meant much to the world of Dragon Age. In fact it would have led to a frustrating disconnect between DA2's ending and where the series was inevitably going. Oh, I solved the circle conflict in Kirkwall, but then revolution happens anyway? It would have been echoes of the disconnect between Rannoch and ME3's ending.

[Dutchess]

Because the story was outright terrible. Well, there was barely any story to speak of, just a bunch of random quests in which stuff constantly went to hell. The companion characters were the only ones who were well written and had depth to them. All mini antagonists you encounter are plain crazy and you can't do anything but kill them. The number of insane people in primary quests is just ridiculous:

- Tarohne

- Bartrand

- Quentin

- Random elf in Blackpowder Courtesy

- Anders

- Orsino

- Meredith

- Huon

- Evelina

- Grace

- Decimus

- Arishok (perhaps not outright insane, but does need to throw a fit because he is feeling homesick to break him out of his Qun character)

 

Soms of these characters get some sort of reason for being nuts, like Anders being merged with Justice, and Bartrand and Meredith with the red lyrium idol, though that is also just a stupid excuse to have them go over the edge. This is plain awful writing. No excuses. Insanity can work in an antagonist, but if you don't have one main antagonist and all minor characters who happen to oppose Hawke can only do so because they are crazy, then that is very uninspired. 

[Dutchess]

He HATE blood mages. Yet he lets a spirit into him.... and the logic for it is just not even that good.

 

Doesn't he disapprove when you hunt down a bunch of blood mages in Amaranthine? Or were they supposed to be ordinary apostates? I thought they were blood mages at least. Either way, they were crazy too.

[Remmirath]

DA II frustrates me because it could have been a very good game. It was close to it, in some places. There were many plot elements that had potential, and I do think the more personal story was an interesting take on things. Many of the NPCs (companion NPCs, at least) were also interesting.

However, I do consider it an inferior game to DA:O, as it stands. My reasons are as follows:

1. Poor combat. I thought that number two on this list was going to be the thing I would have to most get past in order to enjoy the game, but it was the combat. Origins' combat was fine -- it could've stood the animation speeds to be sped up just a bit, particularly with two-handed weapons, but the mechanics and the framework of it worked and were enjoyable. DA II somehow managed to mostly throw that out the window while supposedly being very similar. The numbers became so large they were almost meaningless, the toughness of fights came almost entirely from how many hit points the enemies had (not a fun way to challenge the player), one could not get by with mostly not using the activated abilities, many abilities were kind of silly to my mind (rogues blipping in and out and such), enemies dropping from the sky, not being able to change the equipment on the companions, and so forth. Combat was a chore. A lot of the game is combat.

2. The choice to have a voiced PC (or alternately, the lack of choice for us not to have one). This is a crippling choice for a roleplaying game for many reasons. It hampers replayability, because there are only two voices; it removes the ability to really decide what your character is going to say, because you don't know ahead of time, and you have no idea of how they are going to say it, which is extremely important; it limits the numbers of character concepts which will actually work quite a lot (I ended up playing a male character despite my original intention not to because the female character's voice just didn't work with what I wanted to do). What few advantages it gives are overpowered by the disadvantages. I consider the dialogue wheel to be enmeshed with it, as well.

3. Reused sets, redesign of elves and darkspawn, and all that. The reused sets are definitely a drawback no matter how you cut it. I consider the elves and darkspawn to be quite a problem. Whenever the darkspawn appeared, it was hard to take them seriously, and the elves just looked bizarre. Even ignoring that I didn't like the redesign for the elves, I don't think it made any sense to redesign them in the middle of the series, especially since they were a player race in Origins. Not the sort of thing I think should be changed up in the second game. Of course, neither is combat.

4. Only being able to talk to companions when you have a quest to do so. It felt really odd.

5. It looked like the templars were right in the end no matter which you sided with, since the mages still all went blood mage or abomination either way. Since that was the main conflict, I consider that a fairly severe problem.

The others problems I had were fairly minor quibbles, but they all contributed to the overall effect. If all of those above had not been problems, I think it would've been a good game. As it is, it's possible to enjoy the game, it's just difficult -- at least for me.

[ImperatorMortis]

This board is literally the only place on the internet that defends DA:2.

 

I mean I know this is BSN, but still.