1.) If you're suddenly surrounded by goons that's not your fault that TERRIBLE game design. Look up the top 5 problems with DA2 then come back and re-read my strong points and weak points about both games. I'll do you a favor. Enemies falling out of the sky or just sprouting out of the ground is number 2, right behind repetitive dungeons. So yes you might like that, but most people don't and see that as a huge flaw.
2.) To actually harkens back to what you said in the beginning. "I am somewhat confused by the argument that one of does need to ponder on character actions and positions in a game where the enemy can suddenly land directly next to your mages" When I got into RPGs I enjoyed it because of that very reason, Trying to out think the AI. So yes positioning, strategizing in general how i could most effectively win the encounter long before got underway. I've played all three games a lot, but only DAO stands test of time in that you can plot before hand as oppose to respond during which DA2 and DAI are stuck doing, the later more so because of your limited options as oppose to sudden encounters, or lack of strategy in DA2. No offense but if you dont like to think about your situations I'm curious as to why you got into RPGs.
3.) You kind of weakened you're defense here. You basically admitted that the game required little to no thought, which is exactly what I implied, lets again talk about what a game should be, something you can enjoy, and challenging. If its something you enjoy but isn't challenging then you're only getting half your money's worth in my opinion.
4a.) That makes no sense to someone who has played the game in depth. The loot dropped is scaled to your level, ie a level 2 warden finds gear usually expected to be useful around his level, also only certain enemies usually scripted ones drop set equipment ie this chainmail X enemy drops is always tier 3 with the same bonuses. Also the equipment system itself is more rewarding simply because of the aforementioned scaled to level, and even if you don't need it as you mentioned can be sold for actual significant value, that's not a flaw that's a boon even in game it makes more sense to a loot the guy with the good to decent equipment and if not needed sell it for money in order to buy what you do need, as oppose to kill enemies by the score and find pieces of rope and some a broken pipe and sell it for a few coppers, trust me no one is walking down the street looking for broken pieces of glass to sell.
4b.) If you like you can click my name and look at my post throughout the forums and see my rallying cry on "giving us back control of the actual game/characters" I'm pretty vocal about this, what you see as micromanaging is something most RPG vets consider being in control or actually role playing. How can you call it a RPG if the only thing you do is pick an dialog tree and in combat press one button, until one of your special abilities is available to use? Even the most basic JRPG gives you more options than that, and there entire genre was basic derived from a watered down version of traditional western based CRPGs. Micromanaging is not a flaw in a real RPG, it's a boon that allows you become more engrossed in the game because you control every aspect, if you fail it's your fault, as oppose to say "oops i used heal or my healing potion too soon, now i have to wait 50 seconds until they're usable gain, guess im going to die now, or even worse, simple tactics you would normally have had set up in DAO can't be done in DA2 simply because it would actually make AI controlled allies look smart."
4c.) Wrong again, while i used Wynne as a example, i used the most basic of basic choices. You could take a mage a put every point into int and dex from the moment you get them and they are still available character in more ways than the rest of the series combined. Let me explain, while DA2 allowed you to select stats, they made it very clear that they wanted each class to focus on more than 2 stats, meaning every rogue was a carbon copy of the next stat wise, same for warriors and mages. However in DAO like i said while class had their primary stat in regard to what they needed to for gear or weapons suited to them you could put points into other stats and in most cases still have a viable character. A mage who has high int and dex can take arcane warrior and equip a bow and deal rogue-like damage on their basic attacks if not more so basic attack wise than a rogue as most rogues don't usually go for to much strength, not to mention casting spells and holding up their original role just fine. Same mage could spec himself to be a strength/con character and use shapeshifter to be a tank/dpser, (options that you will never see again in the series), a Rogue could spec himself to be a Straight Strength/Con a play like a dps focused warrior, or he could spec himself to be dex cunning and be a awesome sniper crit rogue, can spec himself to be a str cunning rogue and be a combination of the two, could spec himself to be cunning con rogue and just keep a bare minimum dex or str for gear and utilize which ever specialization best optimizes cunning for damage and bam still awesome, in fact im sure its a rogue skill that switches cunning for strength when dealing melee damage, see where im going with this, Actual control over your character is greatly missing from the series after the first game. You can actual BUILD your own hero the way you want it, and in most cases it'll work and no it's not complicated unless you can't read simple descriptions and make a informed decision on how this must work. They took that out and a lot of people didn't appreciate be cuddled like 5 year olds when it came time to play the next installment.
4d.) What you call branching skill trees is a joke and i mentioned it in another thread as well, they basically lobotomized certain skills and spread out there effects, or simply came up with nice additional effects but rather than just put it on the skill made you work to get it, that is not good gaming, its a weak mechanic used to fill out the game so they can say, "you have 300 skills to choose from." ... no you actually have 100 skills and 200 parts of those 100 that we spaced out to make you think you have a great variety of choice.
Okay, I guess I'll go it through like this.
1) Yes, a game mechanic where ambushes or shifting battlegrounds are possible are truly a sign of bad game design as opposed to a system where the PC just magically knows the position of every single villain. And trotting out the repetitive dungeon is somewhat disengunuos as I doubt anyone asking for games like DA2 are asking for repetitive dungeons, which were clearly a sign of the insanely quick dev time. The wave mechanic suffers from a similar problem in that they weren't able to individualize the events as much as they would have liked or did in the DLCs.
The latter point isn't in defense of the game, as we are discussing implementation, but having a different design philosphy, in this case forcing the player to be constantly be aware of the battle field instead of knowing either to be static like DAO, is not a bad game design. It might not be something you like, but surprisingly disliking something doesn't make it bad.
2.) And the reason DAO stands the test of time is because the combat mechanics and encounters in it are extremely static. It makes developing those tactics easy, because nothing changes during combat itself. And I don't qutie get why you would think that question wouldn't be offensive not only because combat strategy is actually a defining part strategy games rather than RPGs, but also because it makes patronizing comments about my tastes.
3) And now we got to the heart of the matter, as your interpretation is one of what I wrote, but also not the correct one. In DAO, in almost all the combat situations, I can start the combat without any tactics and just tell my group to kill the enemy, go and make a sandwich and return to find the enemy dead. In DA2, I can start the combat, go and make a sandwich, and come back with a good likelihood of a load scren because my group died in the combat. Surprisingly, I find DA2 combat a lot more engaging and challenging in this situation, hence getting my money's worth from it.
The difficulty here is that you are correct, you can micromanage the hell out of DAO combat encounters. However, is completely unnecessary in almost all cases as the combat system is so simplistic. Similarly, you can actually micromanage the hell out of DA2 as well, which was conveniently ignored in your response. I've seen a lot of people discussing here how much of a kick they got out of doing all those tactical things in DAO and I'm not denying that's not possible. The problem with the argument becomes with the fact that it's not necessary at all to handle those situations. If a player wants to make things more difficult for themselves, then they should, but it doesn't make the game itself better.
4a) Surprisingly I have played DAO in depth, although your response leaves me with the question that have you played DA2 in depth. You are correct in that the dropped equipment is scaled by level in to different tiers, but ignore the fact that my comment was on special gear you get from boss fights and side quests, which around one third in to DAO will almost always be better than what you find randomly looting. True, you might find higher tier stuff later in the game, but again if the player has been diligent, s/he will already have better gear than that available. Furthermore, because of the higher tier stuff, especially the armor, being so valuable, it utterly breaks the economics of the game as it makes even the smallest of fights a gold mine. Which is probably a prime reason they moved away from it in DA2/DAI.
In contrast, in DA2 the random loot is always level scaled, while the special gear has set values. This leads to situations, especially if the player does all the sidequests, that the random loot is actually better than the special gear. This was especially evident in Act 3 of the game. I didn't consider it a merit myself, as I prefer good legendary gear, but it does make the random loot mechanistically much more important than DAO did. Besides, you do realize that part of the reason why that junk in general wasn't so valuable was because of design decisions in order to avoid breaking the game economics as badly as they were in DAO?
4b.) First of all, I am really curious about what kind of JRPGs you play which allow impactful dialogue choices. As for micromanaging, sure if you like it, go ahead, but it still doesn't make it a sign of good gamedesign or requirement for a RPG. That just what you prefer, not what is some universally good games. Besides, again to repeat myself, DA2 encounters require a lot more micromanaging than the ones in DAO. Just because you can play DAO with micromanaging everything doesn't make it necessary.
4c.) I feel weird correcting you on DAO mechanics after reading such praise from you, but isn't actually a specilialization that allows the rogue to use cunning instead of strength for damage, it is actually a basic talent that completely unbalances the class compared to the others. Furthermore, in your long explanation how much freedom DAO gives you ignored the fact that the talents have stat requirements. So for example, if you want to play a two weapon warrior in DAO, you have to dump a lot of points to dex. Additionally, the gear is the same with having stat requirements. So, sure you can create a lot of combinations with stats, it's just that most of those will be completely useless and prevent you from getting talents.
All of this ignores the fact that nothing in DA2 actually forces you to dump those points in the two primary stats and usually you get a better character built by diversifying those points as opposed to DAO where there's really not to gain. If your playing a s/s or 2H warrior, it would be kind of stupid to put those points in anything other than strength and constitution. True, in both games the classes have primary attributes, but I am utterly confused why in DAO this is an awesome, but in DA2 it is dumping things down? By the way, great way to again be patronizing about people having different tastes.
4d) And to my final, and favorite, argument as with this I could basically just throw my hands up as the argument here is just pretty much non-sensical to me. I realize that is a little bit hypocritical after commenting on patronizing responses, but I really don't know what is supposed to be the response. In DAO, there were utterly linear skill trees, which I guess is making you work for it. Unlike DA2, which required you to invest points in the tree. Which is not making you work for it? Nothing in this argument made sense to me, so I can't really even respond to it.
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