509 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

It was two separate quests. The second quest had different outcomes, the first did not. Even in the fade Feynriel dreams of both the keeper and the first enchanter when it should have been one or the other. If sent to the Dalish he shouldn't know what the inside of the Kirkwall circle looked like or who the first enchanter was and vice versa. The whole game gave me the impression of "meh, the player isn't smart enough to notice the difference, we'll just throw in explosions and backflips and their tiny brains will be distracted."

This is untrue, and I have DA:O as proof. 

 

When the sloth demon sends the Warden and the group into the Fade, the first place he/she ends up is Weisshaupt fortress. No Warden, of any origin, has ever been here, so if the demon relied solely on the memory of its victim, this place should not exist in the trap. The demons can clearly create a world and populate it with people that are both unfamiliar, and alter people's perception so they don't notice the oddities around them. Example: Leliana doesn't recognize the Warden if you take her to the Circle and she's caught in the trap with you.
 

When Feynriel is lost in the demons' traps, they're pretty much doing the same thing. As far as we can tell, Feynriel never met Vincento, or was at least not old enough to remember him. When Caress has Feynriel dreaming of his father and he starts to question the world around him, he notes that he's being made to feel a certain way, even though he doesn't know him.

 

In any case, this seems like a case of splitting hairs to me, because Feynriel's quests vary as well as his ultimate fate (and that of Arianni should you choose to sunder his mind).

[Chashan]

This is untrue, and I have DA:O as proof. 

 

When the sloth demon sends the Warden and the group into the Fade, the first place he/she ends up is Weisshaupt fortress.

 

Which has the exact same tile-sets as Ostagar, as it were, and looks just as run down.

 

Lack of assets, one may very well claim. The one focal point of the illusion there is Duncan - who the Warden PC may not regard too highly to begin with. Sloth appears to be somewhat inept at evaluating its victims' fondness for certain persons at times, though, as Morrighan's straight-up rejection to interact with Flemeth's illusion shows.

 

When Feynriel is lost in the demons' traps, they're pretty much doing the same thing. As far as we can tell, Feynriel never met Vincento, or was at least not old enough to remember him. When Caress has Feynriel dreaming of his father and he starts to question the world around him, he notes that he's being made to feel a certain way, even though he doesn't know him.

 

Wrong. Feynriel does meet his da' when he bails out on his mother, who then directs him to Samson, which then of course leads him into bad company.

[JamieCOTC]

Had DA2 not been rushed out the door the different setting and tone would likely have gotten a more pleasant welcome. In the DA:I hype I see a lot of stones hurled at the tone of DA2 for being the big fault of the game. For some I'm sure it was, but really the big fault was the very tight time budget that BW had for this game.

[MagicalMaster]

I think another part is basically this:

 

DAO had decent ideas and executed them decently.

 

DA2 had some amazing ideas but executed them terribly.

[Newschmoo]

I thought DA2 was a good game.  I did read a lot of negativity about it before I played it and I still enjoyed it.

 

Yes, there were downsides, such as being limited to a smaller area geographically (in and around Kirkwall), the re-use of the maps for the caves and no player races (I do like playing elves).  And yes, it wasn't as epic as DAO.  But then Hawke (for me) didn't really have that one goal at the beginning to reach for, like the Warden did.  And Hawke's journey took 7 years.

 

But, I really liked the combat in DA2, particularly when playing as a two handed warrior or rogue.  And some of the characters such as Varric, Aveline, Isabela and Cullen.  And I liked having a voiced protagonist (particularly my male sarcastic Hawke).  

 

It still has replayability for me.

[Frostfyre]

I don't consider DA 2 to be bad, but I don't see it as good either. The good and the bad of the game kind of balances itself, and I find myself sitting on the fence. Having the voiced protagonist, the characters, and in some aspects of the combat make it re-playable to me. 

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

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.

I agree with everything you said but especially this, the story Bioware wanted to tell had potential, but Bioware failed at its execution rather spectacularly, I would even go so far as in saying some of the characters they created or expanded upon where just very badly written.

[KaiserShep]

I honestly don't see how DA2 is so badly written, but then coming from Mass Effect before I even got into DA, both games are better written than that entire trilogy.

[Dutchess]

I honestly don't see how DA2 is so badly written, but then coming from Mass Effect before I even got into DA, both games are better written than that entire trilogy.

 

You don't see anything bad about the army of insane mini antagonists marching past for Hawke to kill? Insanity can work as a character's driving force, but if that's all the writers can come up with as a reason to oppose Hawke, that's really poor.

[KaiserShep]

No, not particularly. To say that it was simply insanity is kind of oversimplifying it. Tarohne, batsh*t as she was, at least had motivation in that she hated the Templars and were trying to sow chaos among them by possessing their recruits, and if you're in her hideout, then you're clearly there to get in her way. The elven fanatic in A Blackpowder Courtesy had a clear motivation as well, in that elves were being drawn to the qunari and she wanted people to blame them for all the death in the streets (and honestly, I can see Valenna doing the same exact thing in her situation). A lot of the anti-qunari fanatics you fight have a very clear motivation in that they were all pawns of someone who actually wasn't insane (Petrice). The Arishok wasn't insane, though perhaps terribly rash in his judgment. If these characters were aimless in their aggression then I would have had a problem with them, but they weren't.

 

The only ones I really have an issue with are Orsino and Meredith, since it should have been just one or the other.

 

But again, I simply don't agree that DA2 is nearly as badly written as a lot on this forum would let on.

[themikefest]

The time that Bioware had to make DA2, they did a good job. Had they had more time, I'm sure the game would be better polished then what we have.

[bEVEsthda]

 ^

Oh, I so agree with that! DA2 was a wellmade game. Which is one of the reasons I'm wary of the suggestion that the failure is due to it being "rushed".

It's easy enough to criticize all the faults of DA2. - But my point is that pretty much the same can be said of any game!

 

The key is whether you like the game or not. You like it? Well, then even the reused environments are forgivable, because the reason for that was entirely to squeeze in more content into the game. And actually, I agree with that. (It is unforgivable, and it won't work in a relationship with gamers, but fundamentally - I'd rather have reused environments and more content than not more content at all).

 

I have high regards for Mike Laidlaw's efficiency as a lead designer. I maybe could have said I don't agree with his taste in games. But I'm not saying that either, because I know the decision for the new direction was a collective decision by all the senior heads.

 

- But boy were they wrong!

 

That's why it worried me, in the beginning, that Bioware seemed to assume the new direction was fine, and that only the execution had failed.

It does  depend upon what exactly you mean by execution, but in general terms, I don't think DA2 was a badly made game at all. Not at all. Even more remarkable when you consider the time.

 

I didn't like  the game.  - I hated it!  And no amount of development time and no amount of polish is likely to change that.

[Fishy]

DAO had plenty of ''thing that people hated''. BioWare might have tryed something new, but the public did not appreciate has much.

 

I don,t know what their very idea was .. but some assumption.

 

 

1: They wanted to get away from the ''save the world'' concept''. It was a good attempt, but I guess what bite them in the ass was the very short dev time they had for DA2. Which mean fewer place to visit and repeastable stuff. Clearly they did not waste much resource in some area.. Like elf texture lol.

 

2: They wanted to make the combat more responsive. DAO combat was sloppy and a lot of people disliked it. DA2 combat felt too much arcadey and wayy to fast . Don,t get me started on the wave thing.

 

3: Relationship. They made everyone bi. No idea why.

 

4: They actually improved the relationship thing and obviously tested it on their DLC and expansion. The reception was somewhat good. DAO was bad. You could just spam your companion with gift and get them to like you before even reaching the first major place in the game. I also hated the whole camp thing .. after each mission you bassicaly had to visit each companion in the camp like a psychologist trying to  fix ''all '' of them. it's felt more like a chore than anything else and not very role playing like. They improved  it on DA2 imo.

 

5: They gave each companion unique armor set. Some hated it . .Me I liked it. It gave them more personality. Not just drone following you with statistic. BioWare need to stay with their stronger narrative and not be like Skyrim. Seeing Morrigan in full plate armor was atroce. It's out of character and break the immersion.

 

6: DAO was not longer actually. DAO had more to explore, but not more to do. Both game took me around the same time to complete while doing everything I can do.

 

 

DA2 felt like they did not really know what they wanted to do with some element of the game. While DAI they seem to know exactly what they want to do. Which is good.

[KaiserShep]

4: They actually improved the relationship thing and obviously tested it on their DLC and expansion. The reception was somewhat good. DAO was bad. You could just spam your companion with gift and get them to like you before even reaching the first major place in the game. I also hated the whole camp thing .. after each mission you bassicaly had to visit each companion in the camp like a psychologist trying to  fix ''all '' of them. it's felt more like a chore than anything else and not very role playing like. They improved  it on DA2 imo.

I dunno, the camp wasn't so bad. What I did wish was that the layout of the camp would vary based on the location, but I suppose that's asking for a bit much. It's not entirely fair to compare it to DA2's companion arrangement, mainly because the entire group was confined to a city, so they all had their own homes and other things to do, and none of them were on any kind of quest unless Hawke decided to bring them along.

 

I prefer DA2's handling of gifts. DA:O's gifts, both prank and regular, were handy for gaming the system, but the approval system in general can potentially get in the way of a quest if it's blocked out by a high score. For the most part, DA:O wasn't really bad about this except for Leliana. If her approval was raised too quickly (which can be done without gifts) you can lock out her companion quest entirely, because the dialogue that triggers the random encounter is blocked off. The Feastday prank came in handy when I figured out what happened, but still.

[Gtdef]

The really bad parts of DA2 were the recycled areas and the third act's silliness with the blood magic. Personally I liked the gameplay of DA2 way more than DAO and I enjoyed the dialogue and characters more. But DAO had a better concept and it's story and plot were far more entertaining.

 

I wouldn't play DAO again though. I played it a lot before DA2 came out and if you build your party well, the combat is so repeptitive and simple that it's almost impossible to continue doing it for 40-50 hours.

[Urazz]

Considering the amount of time that was spent in making DA2, it was a pretty well made game.  Now it did have some flaws that made it not as good as DAO in my opinion but it was still a good game to play.  It also did some things better than DAO as well in my opinion.

[Pateu]

4: They actually improved the relationship thing and obviously tested it on their DLC and expansion. The reception was somewhat good. DAO was bad. You could just spam your companion with gift and get them to like you before even reaching the first major place in the game. I also hated the whole camp thing .. after each mission you bassicaly had to visit each companion in the camp like a psychologist trying to  fix ''all '' of them. it's felt more like a chore than anything else and not very role playing like. They improved  it on DA2 imo.

 

How? Instead of going to them in the camp you are forced to go to their respective hub, which only serves to take up time and adds nothing.

[Androme]

Because the game is ****** garbage compared to the masterpiece that is DA:O.

[Pateu]

Because the game is ****** garbage compared to the masterpiece that is DA:O.

 

Thank you for your elaborate, relevant response.

[AlanC9]

It kind of reminds me of how they implemented specs too. It's just kind of thrown together, like they went "Whatever. They can be blood mages if they press that skill tree button. Nobody cares about an actual attention to detail or story coherency."

They didn't care about that in DA:O either. You can learn blood magic even if that Warden didn't make any deal with a demon, as long as the spec's unlocked. At least in DA2 Hawke has to know Merrill.

[AlanC9]

How? Instead of going to them in the camp you are forced to go to their respective hub, which only serves to take up time and adds nothing.

The pacing of the conversations was improved, for one thing. One thing I didn't like about DA:O -- which regrettably, may be coming back -- is that the player has to manage how fast he goes through the NPCs dialog trees. In my first couple of playthroughs I was either burning out people's camp dialog so they had nothing to say for half the game, or not going through the trees fast enough and so having to either skip content or do a whole bunch of chatting on the way to the final battle.

[Pateu]

Yeah, it's why I made it a rule to only pursue 1-2 topics per camp break when I replayed Origins.

 

The pacing of the conversations was improved, for one thing. One thing I didn't like about DA:O

 

That isn't relevant to what I asked, though.

 

You still have to go to 6 different locations to talk to your companions, which is annoying because you just walk a lot when you could say call them to your house and have a party!

 

You never actually see Hawke/The Warden socializing with their buddies, whereas in Mass Effect there's the Citadel DLC that lets you do that plenty.

[AlanC9]

I'm not sure it's fair to count the Citadel DLC there.

If we're only talking about the camp vs. individual homes, it wasn't that much more walking. Well, except for Aveline; they should have had a fast travel route to her office. And I kind of liked the idea of a little privacy for some of those scenes. Anyway, everyone living together wouldn't have made much sense.