44 réponses à ce sujet

[Grimx0r]

I understand that the current trend in game design is to facilitate accessability in order to make more money. However, why not give  something to the oldschool players through the Nightmare difficulty?

I am playing through Awakening for the second time and finding it laughably easy. The most 'difficult' fights requires no tactical thinking whatsoever, becoming overly long, drawn-out tank and spanks. The spirit dragon is especially disappointing.

For instance, on the Baroness, why not make those Fade Portals spawn revenants and arcane horrors on Nightmare?

This is not a cry of 'look how leet I am'; its just disappointing when you have all these great new abilities like juggernaut and gaurdian shield and absolutely no need to use them because the fights are so simple. As great as the story and the world is, once I finished the game I felt no sense of achievement because I knocked over every challenge so easily. Don't even get me started on the Archdemon on Nightmare...

Anyone else feel like this?

Would you like to see a Nightmare mode in DA2 that adds new mechanics, not just pumps damage and health?

Maybe if you use too many mana pots you get a lyrium addiction? Mages that can shatter, fear and disorient you (remember crapping yourself whenever a mage popped up in BG2?)

[Grimx0r]

anyone?

[Andari_Surana]

They should plan a mechanics overhaul as part of a DLC, call it Hell mod DLC.  Nerf all the overpowed junk.  Add a few nice items and encounters, maybe even a few plot twists or a dungeon u can only play in hell mode and wallah a DLC u can charge money for.

Its for their own good to do such a thing, there has been a lot of pushback/threads/reviews that the mechanics for this game are unbalanced in favor of easy/unchallenging.  It was made even moreso by Awakening.  I watched the developers face light up on the xfire interview talking about how some ability makes everything next to the warrior just die...and i was slapping my forehead saying this is not what players really want.  They got it in their head that b/c they heard the mage was overpowered in Origins (another interview), that they needed to bring the other characters into alignment -- which means everyone is now overpowered.

Before going off to to make Dragon Age 2, they should try another attempt at getting it right.  I think a fair number of players are going to look for Bioware to acknowledge the need to offer more challenging content / more balanced mechanics before they purchase the next expansion or sequel.

Many players are already playing this game at max difficulty, and still thinking NM is too easy. 
We definately aren't just a small percentage of the player base.  See Polls:
Poll:  I like to play at what difficulty:
Poll 1
Poll 2


 

Modifié par Andari_Surana, 23 mars 2010 - 05:51 .

[Grimx0r]

Wow those polls put it into perspective. Lets hope this is a force for change. Games have proved to be democratic in listening to their most loyal fans.

[schwerttau]

Point is: difficulty of nightmare of DA:A is not the same as it was in DA:O. After I finished DA:A I continued DA:O on another char and was wondering why I was dying all the time.. then I realized, the difficulty was not set just for DA:A but for the whole DA:O/DA:A-installation. Switched back to hard and was fine. I turned on nightmare for DA:A because hard was so easy. Well nightmare wasn't that much harder, never lost a party member during combat.

[Akinra]

I've just played Awakening and am amazed at how easy Nightmare was. In DA:O nightmare was very challenging. When I first started DA:A I had to check the difficulty because I thought it was on casual or normal. It's the only real downside to DA:A for me as the fights just aren't that exciting.

[Spyndel]

Im not a fan up pumping up difficulty by simply globally inflating stats like HP and damage. I would rather see the encounters redesigned with "epic level" enemies with frightening abilities designed to challenge high level characters.

I kind of expected to be fighting groups of all Ogres and Revenants in Awakening, but for the most part the enemy mix seemed the same as it was in Origins, but characters are simply too powerful now to be challenged by those encounters anymore.

Modifié par Spyndel, 23 mars 2010 - 01:24 .

[Adal0n]

Same here. Nightmare difficulty on Awakening is too easy. Maybe has something to do with the fact that I imported a 23lvl character? I dont know but still nightmare difficulty shouldnt be that easy.
Maybe the expansion was designed around characters that start at 18lvl?

Modifié par Adal0n, 23 mars 2010 - 01:33 .

[Spell Singer]

It is a script based system. By definition that means you can "game" the game. Once you do that the difficulty level plummets like a rock. There is no solution to this. You can make the creatures tougher, and harder hitting but you can't give them the ability to out think a human who can learn and adapt. I play on hard as that is good balance between challenge and avoiding long and tedious fights.



Complaining about it is largely pointless. The only way for you to make the combats harder is to NOT indulge in behavior that you know will exploit the script weaknesses. And that is all there is to be done since scripts are simply not flexible while humans are.



I recall from DMing online all that I needed to do to up the difficulty level was apply a bit of direct DM intervention. Things like telling a fighter to charge any mage I saw stopped to cast a spell. Set up a nice ambush using special groups. Grab those creatures and move them there. Do a bit of tweeking to skins or stats as well but those were less important then my direct intervention in a fight. But writing a script that would simulate that? And more to the point would be effective more than once...since when you die you get to try again. It took me most of an afternoon to figure out the battlemaster fight to rescue Liara in ME and the solution isn't something I'm proud of since it is nonsensical but it works and nothing else I tried did.

[Spyndel]

Spell Singer wrote...

It is a script based system. By definition that means you can "game" the game. Once you do that the difficulty level plummets like a rock. There is no solution to this. You can make the creatures tougher, and harder hitting but you can't give them the ability to out think a human who can learn and adapt. I play on hard as that is good balance between challenge and avoiding long and tedious fights.

Complaining about it is largely pointless. The only way for you to make the combats harder is to NOT indulge in behavior that you know will exploit the script weaknesses. And that is all there is to be done since scripts are simply not flexible while humans are.

I recall from DMing online all that I needed to do to up the difficulty level was apply a bit of direct DM intervention. Things like telling a fighter to charge any mage I saw stopped to cast a spell. Set up a nice ambush using special groups. Grab those creatures and move them there. Do a bit of tweeking to skins or stats as well but those were less important then my direct intervention in a fight. But writing a script that would simulate that? And more to the point would be effective more than once...since when you die you get to try again. It took me most of an afternoon to figure out the battlemaster fight to rescue Liara in ME and the solution isn't something I'm proud of since it is nonsensical but it works and nothing else I tried did.

I agree with none of this.  The challenge level could be easy addressed by redesigning the encounters with different enemy mixes...there are quantifiable ways to address it...it is not the nebulous impossibility you make it out to be.

Fighting a group of lieutenant level Hurlock Emmissaries is going to be much more difficult than fighting the same standard enemy mix of one or two Lt. in a group of minions. But Awakening is still made up more of the latter. Minion level enemies, even in droves, are no longer a threat to characters of this level. Elite enemies bypass armor and defense with special abilities and are still dangerous. More of them = more challenge.


Also, complaining clearly *isn't* pointless, as the broader audience they targeted with Origins managed to complain and get the difficulty level made *easier*.

Modifié par Spyndel, 23 mars 2010 - 02:14 .

[Spell Singer]

How are hurlock emissaries in a group any more difficult then any other mix?



You exploit the script based combat system to defeat the mixed group and you exploit in a different way the script based combat system to defeat a group of emissaries. Fighting a script at the end of the day isn't going to be a challenge to a human being who can learn adapt and try infinite times. The easiest way to make the combat more difficult is to not exploit the script but that is up to you not bioware.



So far as I am aware all they did was make the easy difficulty setting easier. And the only thing you are asking for is more of, which isn't going to make thing more difficult it will just mean you will use more exploitative behavior to win. Heck assuming you were more or less resistant to fire all you need to do is run into the middle of the stupid emissaries and they will kill themselves by casting fireballs on you. The NPCs can't grasp friendly fire not being such. Also what makes one encounter difficult for one party mix may make it much easier for another.



The major difficulty in the game is your NPCs doing something bone headed and you not catching it early enough to head it off before it became a critical failure so far as I can see.



The reason the combat is easy even on nightmare is because there is a limit to what you can do simply by "cheating"...you could make it more difficult by simply making every minion a yellow and every yellow an orange. But ultimately there would be a way to exploit the script which is the weakness the creatures have that would allow you to win so what is the point? A chain is no stronger than the weakest link and that link in this case is made out of soft toffee.



You, I and everyone else are human beings. We can learn, and adapt. How can a static script be a challenge in the long run?

[Spyndel]

Spell Singer wrote...

How are hurlock emissaries in a group any more difficult then any other mix?

You exploit the script based combat system to defeat the mixed group and you exploit in a different way the script based combat system to defeat a group of emissaries. Fighting a script at the end of the day isn't going to be a challenge to a human being who can learn adapt and try infinite times. The easiest way to make the combat more difficult is to not exploit the script but that is up to you not bioware.

So far as I am aware all they did was make the easy difficulty setting easier. And the only thing you are asking for is more of, which isn't going to make thing more difficult it will just mean you will use more exploitative behavior to win. Heck assuming you were more or less resistant to fire all you need to do is run into the middle of the stupid emissaries and they will kill themselves by casting fireballs on you. The NPCs can't grasp friendly fire not being such. Also what makes one encounter difficult for one party mix may make it much easier for another.

The major difficulty in the game is your NPCs doing something bone headed and you not catching it early enough to head it off before it became a critical failure so far as I can see.

The reason the combat is easy even on nightmare is because there is a limit to what you can do simply by "cheating"...you could make it more difficult by simply making every minion a yellow and every yellow an orange. But ultimately there would be a way to exploit the script which is the weakness the creatures have that would allow you to win so what is the point? A chain is no stronger than the weakest link and that link in this case is made out of soft toffee.

You, I and everyone else are human beings. We can learn, and adapt. How can a static script be a challenge in the long run?

You sound like you are making an argument for multiplayer over artificial intelligence.  I wouldnt dispute that there will always be a limit to how much challenge scripted AI can provide vs a human opponent.

But that is not the subject of the thread.  The fact is there *are* quantifiable things you can do to alter the challenge presented in the game that has nothing to do with meta gaming.  How do I know this?  Because Origins is more challenging than Awakening.

Nobody here (except you) is talking about the limits of automated opponents. They are talking about difference in difficulty of the two games relative to each other.  Awakening has almost no challnge, even on Nightmare difficulty. If I made another Nightmare playthrough  on Origins right now, I would find more challenge.  So there are relationships that have changed bewteen the two games in character effectiveness vs enemy effectivenss, and those things could be adjusted.

Modifié par Spyndel, 23 mars 2010 - 02:49 .

[Akinra]

I think importing a high level character has only a small part to play. Even with a level 20/21/22 character towards the end of Origins there were still tough fights on nightmare, obviously not every fight or as many fights as earlier in the game, but there was still a challenge. None of the fights in Awakening provide a challenge unfortunately.

[Gaidren]

The difficulty was way, waaaay less in Awakenings. I was extremely disappointed that I had all these fancy new talents and skills to use and I literally could auto-attack everything to death on Nightmare with ease.



Who balanced this stuff? Many of the new abilities are either stupidly bad, or stupidly good, or (worst of all) redundant with another existing ability. Grevious Insult? Wtf is this, a Taunt that costs twice as much to use?



I thought the story in Awakening was fine. I thought the NPCs were interesting, or at least interesting enough for me to care. The lack of ANY challenging combat though was a total killer. I won't be bothered with a 2nd playthrough, that's for damn sure....and this is coming from somebody who has played Mass Effect 2 from start to finish almost 3 times. Insanity Mass Effect 2 never feels boring and trivial, where as Nightmare Awakening feels exactly that.



I feel like Awakening was balanced around soloing or something. It's almost as if somebody thought to themselves "Just in case somebody doesn't bother to recruit any of the NPCs we'd better make them unnecessary."



Seriously, mob packs in Awakening are often 4-5 at a time. Origins routinely had fights with double that.

[Ensgnblack]

The combination of smaller pulls combined with characters gaining more and powerful abilities was the problem.



I know the game gets easier after figuring out the combat and all, but more enemies would help a lot, in addition to less character power. I had so many abilities to choose from that I had an answer for every scenario.

[Adanu]

Don't you people *dare* tell me how to play my games. You get your Nightmare difficulty ramp up from mods or the devs... let the rest of us who don't want to have to fight spirit dragon level fights each fight have our normal.



Then, when you conquer *that*, make your own mod to make it so that you fight whatever being is supposed to be the Maker in every fight.



Yes, I'm completely and totally sick of people who complain that no difficulty is good enough... they always want more until it's to the point of one of those custom Mario levels where you *CANNOT* make a mistake or you will die instantly.

[Upper_Krust]

Spell Singer wrote...

It is a script based system. By definition that means you can "game" the game. Once you do that the difficulty level plummets like a rock. There is no solution to this. You can make the creatures tougher, and harder hitting but you can't give them the ability to out think a human who can learn and adapt. I play on hard as that is good balance between challenge and avoiding long and tedious fights.

The problem with Dragon Age in general is that you never need to learn and adapt because none of the challenges you are presented with force you to think. All the enemies can be beaten with the same attacks and tactics.

The solution is not to make the creatures necessarily tougher but instead for combat to force players to make choices which will affect the outcome of the battle. Right now, there are no such choices required.

Such choices could include (but are not limited by):

1. In which order do I attack the enemies?

e.g. We need to attack the enemy healer or summoner first. But we could also have creatures that should be attacked last such as a monster which, if destroyed, possesses any remaining allies...or perhaps an enemy leader that if killed, inspires his troops to fight even harder.

In addition, humanoid enemies could also attack in formation (square, wedge etc.) forcing you to attack certain members of a group (for instance the corner of a square is its weakest point).

2. How do I position my characters?

e.g. I should spread my characters out against foes that use area attacks (Genlocks with Grenades for instance), but bunch my characters together against mobs of Shrieks that swarm individual players en masse.

3. Which character attacks which enemy?

e.g. For instance, how about making golems only take 10% damage from magic. Other enemies (maybe spirits) may only take 10% damage from physical attacks. Others might only be injured by critical hits. etc.

Play up the usefulness of each class.

4. With what weapon/spell should I use?

ie. Lets have more creatures that are overtly either immune or heavily resistant to certain types of attacks.

Golems have high armour, but I never felt there was any pressing need to switch to using a mace rather than an axe against them.

5. Should I buff a character for a particular fight?

In Dragon Age, with the possible exception of the High Dragons, you are never forced into a situation where you need to buff against a certain type of attack or defense.

6. Should I de-buff an enemy?

Again, at no point in Dragon Age do you need to de-buff an enemy. These sorts of things are a staple of the genre.

As well as player choice, we also have enemy variables.

A. The composition of an encounter.

ie. After regular fights with certain enemies you have tougher fights using enemies with complimentary abilities.

e.g. The greater rage demon has an aura of fire, while lesser rage demons are healed by fire.

B. The enemy positioning.

It really makes a difference for ranged enemies to actually attack from a distance of more than 10 feet away. It also makes a difference for them to attack from cover.

In an ambush, have enemies attack from multiple directions. In DAO I remember one memorable encounter on a bridge where Shrieks attack from the front and back simultaneously. That was probably the only instance of the whole game where an ambush actually was effective (because the two groups were strong enough to cause problems) whereas typically even an unattended mage will defeat 2-3 basic enemies even on auto tactics.

C. The enemy tactics.

e.g. How about something as simple as an enemy leader using a potion 5 seconds after they reach 50% health. That way players have 5 seconds to drop that one character to gain the potion they carry.

D. The enemy morale.

Would a pack of wolves or genlocks all fight to the death? How about setting up morale for enemies.

1. Cowardly - run away when outnumbered (if they escape, add these enemies to the next battle)
2. Normal - surrender if the last man standing (players have the moral choice to kill them or give quarter)
3. Immune to Fear - things like undead and golems
4. Heroic - gain a bonus to attack/damage when they are outnumbered and perhaps an additional bonus when they are the last man standing.

E. Enemy reinforcements.

For higher difficulty levels (Hard and Nightmare) have the possibility of Vanguard and Rearguard forces joining the fight.

ie. If you have three encounter groups, instead of fighting them one at a time, on Nightmare difficulty you might battle them all simultaneously or one after the other with no break in between.

F. Defend NPC Ally/Object.

Never in the game do you need to protect anything other than your own characters. I definately think it would be a welcome change to use this now and again.

e.g. Darkspawn want to destroy the Altar of Andraste...or you have to defend King Alastair from assassins (and if he dies, its game over).

Complaining about it is largely pointless.

 
No, actually its not. Constructive criticism of the game's failings are how the developers can take steps to improve future sequels.

The only way for you to make the combats harder is to NOT indulge in behavior that you know will exploit the script weaknesses. And that is all there is to be done since scripts are simply not flexible while humans are.

Thats utter nonsense. There are many ways to make the game harder without resorting to simply more hit points and better defenses/attacks for the enemies.

I recall from DMing online all that I needed to do to up the difficulty level was apply a bit of direct DM intervention. Things like telling a fighter to charge any mage I saw stopped to cast a spell. Set up a nice ambush using special groups. Grab those creatures and move them there. Do a bit of tweeking to skins or stats as well but those were less important then my direct intervention in a fight. But writing a script that would simulate that? And more to the point would be effective more than once...since when you die you get to try again. It took me most of an afternoon to figure out the battlemaster fight to rescue Liara in ME and the solution isn't something I'm proud of since it is nonsensical but it works and nothing else I tried did.

Simplicity itself.

[Upper_Krust]

Adanu wrote...

Don't you people *dare* tell me how to play my games. You get your Nightmare difficulty ramp up from mods or the devs... let the rest of us who don't want to have to fight spirit dragon level fights each fight have our normal.

Then, when you conquer *that*, make your own mod to make it so that you fight whatever being is supposed to be the Maker in every fight.

Yes, I'm completely and totally sick of people who complain that no difficulty is good enough... they always want more until it's to the point of one of those custom Mario levels where you *CANNOT* make a mistake or you will die instantly.

With all due respect... *bites lip*

No one wants to spoil the game for anyone else and thats not what anyones suggesting.

They want Easy difficulty to be easy, Normal difficulty to be a decent challenge for beginners, Hard to actually be 'hard' and nightmare to be really tough indeed.

At the moment, Awakening is relatively easy on Nightmare difficulty.

Thus the terms hard and Nightmare are completely erroneous for the difficulties presented.

[Livemmo]

am i the only one that likes feeling overpowered while slaughtering everything in my virtual path with ease?

[Spyndel]

Adanu wrote...

Don't you people *dare* tell me how to play my games. You get your Nightmare difficulty ramp up from mods or the devs... let the rest of us who don't want to have to fight spirit dragon level fights each fight have our normal.

Then, when you conquer *that*, make your own mod to make it so that you fight whatever being is supposed to be the Maker in every fight.

Yes, I'm completely and totally sick of people who complain that no difficulty is good enough... they always want more until it's to the point of one of those custom Mario levels where you *CANNOT* make a mistake or you will die instantly.

Relax. Nobody is saying Dragon age needs to be tougher overall on the easy difficulty settings, if that is what you are happy with.  People just wanted a challenge that was at least consistent with Origins, which Awakening was not, even on Nightmare difficulty.

It would be nice to have a campaign that was actually designed for the high level characters in it.  Characters in Awakenings are much more powerful, but the enemies don't scale in impressiveness enough to compensate.

And, by the way, on Nightmare difficulty, my party ran through and used simple auto attacks to kill the Spirit Dragon in one try. Surely one can see there is an issue here.

[Spyndel]

Livemmo wrote...

am i the only one that likes feeling overpowered while slaughtering everything in my virtual path with ease?

Thats what easy mode is for.  If thats the way you want to play, then your preferences are provided for.  Players who enjoy challenge should be able to get some reasonable challenge on higher difficulty settings though.

[Augie]

 This is a borderline spoiler post and it's hard not to put in spoilers. 

I totally agree that its too easy. Once you get the hang of  the new talents mixed with the old really make each member that much more stronger than in Origins. The concept of it all would work but only with data transferablity between the two games because thats where the true nightmare difficulty exists. All in all I am up with this game and looking forward to more installments.

Modifié par Augie, 23 mars 2010 - 05:25 .

[Spyndel]

Eli-da-Mage wrote...

I imagine you all play this 24/7 then. I play it on Nightmare and every battle to me requires tactics and a lot of character switches. Even Hurlock Alphas are kind of a small "oh for-gods sake why them" fight.

I don't know what to say to that.  I hadn't played DA in months, and in Origins I generally find "Hard" difficulty engaging enough to play on. In Awakening, I had to crank up to Nightmare, and my main character died once the entire game, in the very last battle due to a Friendly Fire error on my part.

Obviously it depends on your familiarity with the game system and your party, but for the most part my team just slept walked through everything using auto attacks and little tactical gameplay.

I didnt even cast spells...I just dragged along a mage to use as a heal/buff-bot and support fire. My rogue, a dual wielding Oghren, and one of the now powerful archers just tore everything up fairly effortlessly.

With the stats, gear,  and powers high level characters have, minion level enemies are simply not a threat anymore. The only threat comes from lieutenant or elite level enemies with special attacks that bypass armor and defense, and can incapacitate you. But there arent enough of those, and it's easy to quickly take them out of a fight. Enemies simply dont keep pace with characters.

I dont want to make the game harder for people who enjoy playing on easy mode. But I would like the game restored to at least Origins level of challenge on higher difficulties.

Modifié par Spyndel, 23 mars 2010 - 05:53 .

[Haexpane]

there is no question the scaling is not working correctly and the AI can not challenge the player at levels 20-32. It becomes a cakewalk on Hard