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Heya Peoples!
I'm sure a lot of people here enjoy other games besides Starcraft...and one of my favorite companies, Bioware just released a new game: Dragon Age 2!
Now, I played Dragon Age: Origins a metric shitton. I had like 3 full playthroughs where I did every quest and tried all the classes. It was something like 50-90 hours for each playthrough. I loved the game (a huge fan of Mass Effect as well). Anyways - I've been looking at some of the metacritic reviews and kind of being outright shocked that a lot of people are complaining about the combat.
People that were complaining about combat drew 2 conclusions from me:
1. They are gamers and immediately complain about everything that isn't perfect a la the comic book guy from the Simpsons. I mean, let's face it...I do it too. It's part of the gamer gene.
2. They didn't try upping the difficulty. Bioware really made the 'normal' level of this game pretty easy. Any of the people that played through on DA:O are going to have an easy time.
Now, if you read the manual it says 'Nightmare' difficulty lets you friendly fire your own units. To be honest, I'm almost terrified of this difficulty level because 'Hard' is FREAKIN' HARD! Hard seems to add more enemies to fight with each fight and it really feels like they hit harder or you have less hp. It's difficult to tell. The game makes you really think about group composition and you have to pause all the time to work out how to handle big fights. I'd say on average, hard is requiring 1-3 deaths per large battle. I have only put it a small amount of hours so far, so I haven't really fought any epic bosses yet, but this is exactly the right difficulty for me.
Graphically, the game looks really nice...but there are really only a few areas to travel to. It feels very restricted so far with a lot of recycled environments. I like the family aspect of the story, but it sort of feels like Bioware is trying to pull a lot of ideas from other games to implement in DA2 instead of using their own ideas and formula that everyone loved in DA:O.
Also...I really miss Slate - the golem from the DLC of DA:O
I'll post a more in-depth review as I play more of the game.
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Anything you like, you always find some pricks criticizing it because they're stupid elitest fucks.
User was warned for this post
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I tried it out too and i dont have any problems with the combat, but i rather dislike the extremely repetitive environments.
+ Show Spoiler +
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Shale you mean ^^
Shale was awesome, I hope we again get interesting companions this time
I only got it today and only got to play for 2-3 hours. I can only say that the combat is a bit dull yes, at least it's fun for now.
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Yeah, being stuck in one city is really my biggest gripe in the game. Hard difficulty is fun times though!
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I haven't gotten 2 yet because i haven't been able to get into origins. I kept hearing how it was the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate, but i really couldn't stand it. The interface felt clunky and awkward in comparison, and party member AI was terrible. In BG, i always felt like i had complete control over what all six members of the party were doing, but in DA half the battle was getting my party to do what i wanted. Plus, not being able to issue move commands on the map is just fucking stupid.
In the end, i just stopped playing and went and replayed through BG2. Best decision I've made in some time.
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Wait, there's no friendly fire on hard? I don't know if you played DA:O on nightmare but if you did how does it compare? (or how does it compare to whatever difficulty you did beat it on)
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On March 11 2011 04:04 CultureMisfits wrote:
Anything you like, you always find some pricks criticizing it because they're stupid elitest fucks.
this.
personally i won't be getting dragon age 2, it just doesn't appeal to me like the first 1 did. might have a change of heart when it goes down in price and i will pick it up cheap. :/
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This game is too ugly for me. Even if it was challenging/interesting ( it is not for me ) i would have an hard time playing it.
I mean NwN 2 Motb is at least ten time better but well i couldn't finish it because it is full of ugly polygons.
I hate 3D Crpg because they are not beautiful. Kinda weird because at the same time i have no problem with old FPS like half life, quake or UT ~_~
edit: also lol @ stupid elitists
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Shale! The bartender in The Hanged Man gossips about how recently in Ferelden pigeon population has taken a nosedive 
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On March 11 2011 04:24 Count9 wrote:
Wait, there's no friendly fire on hard? I don't know if you played DA:O on nightmare but if you did how does it compare? (or how does it compare to whatever difficulty you did beat it on)
Yea there is no FF on hard.
As far as nightmare, it's definitely harder than DA:O from what I've played so far (level 8 right now). Often times you fight waves of enemies and there seems to be at least one boss in every fight. Not to mention if low health/low fortitude characters are getting hit they won't be able to do jack shit so you need to be kiting a decent amount.
The increase of difficulty is somewhat alleviated by the cheap respecs you can get which allow to learn the game faster and have builds for smaller level ranges. I've kind of hit a stride as well with my party which has been letting me mow shit down the last few levels but I'm not sure if that can last.
Overall I've found nightmare to be very enjoyable and my play through will probably take as long or longer than origins since I spend a lot of time setting up my party and thinking about how to develop them as the game progresses.
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Saying an elitist is stupid is as stupid as saying that a player is a dumb nolife pleasure-thriving spoiled freak.
I also miss Baldur's Gate. I mean, in comparison, many characters and many sides of the story seem dull. And BG was so frigging IMMENSE... that was mad. Everything was fun and well thought, even the romances had a spicy thing to them.
Dragon Age was pretty good, I really enjoyed it. But they're trying too much to please the player with buckets of blood and unnecessary violence. The storyline is also too much of a patchwork, with large parts directly taken from our History (the roman empire, the church...).
And last but not least, EA wants my money too bad. BG was done with much more passion and much less greed.
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On March 11 2011 05:12 RivalryRedux wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2011 04:24 Count9 wrote:
Wait, there's no friendly fire on hard? I don't know if you played DA:O on nightmare but if you did how does it compare? (or how does it compare to whatever difficulty you did beat it on) Yea there is no FF on hard. As far as nightmare, it's definitely harder than DA:O from what I've played so far (level 8 right now). Often times you fight waves of enemies and there seems to be at least one boss in every fight. Not to mention if low health/low fortitude characters are getting hit they won't be able to do jack shit so you need to be kiting a decent amount. The increase of difficulty is somewhat alleviated by the cheap respecs you can get which allow to learn the game faster and have builds for smaller level ranges. I've kind of hit a stride as well with my party which has been letting me mow shit down the last few levels but I'm not sure if that can last. Overall I've found nightmare to be very enjoyable and my play through will probably take as long or longer than origins since I spend a lot of time setting up my party and thinking about how to develop them as the game progresses.
Does it feel like there's only 1 or 2 right ways to build characters in order to beat the increased difficulty or is customization actually possible? (I remember in DA1 most of the spells and effects were useless on nightmare cause of saving throws and reduced time)
I'm still debating getting this since I want a new rpg to sink my teeth into before I go on spring break.
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Loved DA:O. Best game to waste time on for relaxiation, even better then WoW was when I used to play. I downloaded the first one tho, cus I was sceptical about the qualitt hours it would provide me. Thinking about buying the 2nd one because the first one had been more than worth its money. Still awaiting a good review about it tho before im really convinced to buy.
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On March 11 2011 04:45 ATeddyBear wrote:Shale! The bartender in The Hanged Man gossips about how recently in Ferelden pigeon population has taken a nosedive
LOL, this was probably my favorite callback yet, very well done.
I am still in the first chapter but it has been fun so far.
I am still adjusting to some of the changes.
The only real gripe is, as someone above said, the maps can get repetitive for all the little quests.
The resource gathering is better than any of the DA/ME games yet.
I don't like my companions quite as much as I did in DA:O though, it is hard to top Leliana,Shale, and the others.Of course this might be because I have played a full game with them and have only dealt with the new characters a tiny bit.
I like the travel system a lot and that there aren't so many interruptions.
The new class trees have better depth than I expected and I think i prefer them over the previous straight lines,though unfortunately it also means less options.
The inventory management is very good as well, but I will say that I wish other characters could wear the stuff you pick up as great items for other classes are now useless.
I wasn't sure about new icons for menu choices, but after using them they are great. I can finally play a wisecracking character. So many times I tried that in their other games and the line ended up being delivered in a much different tone than I expected.
so far, I am very happy that I picked it up.
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On March 11 2011 05:32 Count9 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2011 05:12 RivalryRedux wrote:On March 11 2011 04:24 Count9 wrote:
Wait, there's no friendly fire on hard? I don't know if you played DA:O on nightmare but if you did how does it compare? (or how does it compare to whatever difficulty you did beat it on) Yea there is no FF on hard. As far as nightmare, it's definitely harder than DA:O from what I've played so far (level 8 right now). Often times you fight waves of enemies and there seems to be at least one boss in every fight. Not to mention if low health/low fortitude characters are getting hit they won't be able to do jack shit so you need to be kiting a decent amount. The increase of difficulty is somewhat alleviated by the cheap respecs you can get which allow to learn the game faster and have builds for smaller level ranges. I've kind of hit a stride as well with my party which has been letting me mow shit down the last few levels but I'm not sure if that can last. Overall I've found nightmare to be very enjoyable and my play through will probably take as long or longer than origins since I spend a lot of time setting up my party and thinking about how to develop them as the game progresses. Does it feel like there's only 1 or 2 right ways to build characters in order to beat the increased difficulty or is customization actually possible? (I remember in DA1 most of the spells and effects were useless on nightmare cause of saving throws and reduced time) I'm still debating getting this since I want a new rpg to sink my teeth into before I go on spring break.
I don't have a definite answer but here are my thoughts so far
* Rogues/Warriors seem to have much better talent variety. In DA:O it seemed pretty terrible for those classes.
* Mages feel about the same, there's certain spells that I want in my party period.
* The requirements for hawke's gear are more constrictive. Heavy armor needs Str/Con, Light needs Dex/Cun and Cloth needs Will/Mag. Classes can only use they're own weapons. So from a warrior/rogue perspective you will only being wearing your classes gear.
*With mages however I can definitely see going Str/Con as a possibility (for blood mage spec) and there might be some crazy critical build that uses Dex/Cun (seems like it depends on how weapons scale your damage vs magic)
*A lot of the design is in building a good party and building a good party definitely seems to require CCC (Cross class combos). Pro tip spoiler + Show Spoiler +Chain lightningx2 + Pummel is sooooooooooo goooooooooooooooood
*The standard parties are still some variant of War/Rogue/Mage/X with X being heavily weighted towards another rogue or mage IMO.
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Shale! Omg...I'll go ahead and blame work for that mistake. Haha.
Does it feel like there's only 1 or 2 right ways to build characters in order to beat the increased difficulty or is customization actually possible? (I remember in DA1 most of the spells and effects were useless on nightmare cause of saving throws and reduced time)
I'm still debating getting this since I want a new rpg to sink my teeth into before I go on spring break.
Well, let's put it this way: If you don't have threat loss talents ASAP...you're BONED! You have to watch threat a lot and dump it whenever possible on your dps/healers. I might be doing too much dps though. I was kind of building my parties to maximize their strengths. On hard and nightmare, I think you might need more hp and defense than dps.
All in all, the difficulty is much higher on the harder levels than DA:O.
Nightmare is the only difficulty with the Friendly Fire. Hard is already pretty tough without it. Unless you do a specific build I could see Nightmare being...well...a nightmare.
PS: What kind of builds are people doing? Anything super effective?
+ Show Spoiler +I've been using Averline as tank, Me as Rogue DPS - looking at stealth right now to drop threat, Bethany as healer/basic CC, Fenris as buffer/2nd dps
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On March 11 2011 04:04 CultureMisfits wrote:
Anything you like, you always find some pricks criticizing it because they're stupid elitest fucks.
User was warned for this post
Often times you might like something that many people don't really like. That is also a possibility. That's probably why you got warned.
Haven't played either DA or DA2 but if it's lower rated maybe it just doesn't live up to the original.
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DA2 isn't that good just compared to DA:O
1. They said multiple times that DA2 was going to be some what like Baldur's Gate, its not
2. The whole game basically takes place in one city, WTF????????
3. Every "dungeon" looks the exact same.
4. Half the crafting is thrown out/simplified
5. PC tactical camera gone(minor but still)
6. Can't change your allies armor????????
7. Game takes place over a decade but nothing looks to have changed especially your allies unless you to the one special quest for each one.
8. First game has little impact on the second game.(unlike ME)
9. Major graphics glitches on PC, and lots of studdering on the 360.
DA:O took about 5 years to make DA2 took one you do the math. DA2 is such a step back. They tried to ME2 to DA2 but the systems for ME and DA are really different. ME1's inventory system was horrid so they just got rid of it and turned it into a FPS with heavy RPG influences which was fine. For DA series they have constantly said that its suppose to be the successor to Baldur's Gate but I don't see that I only see some shitty console RPG with Dragon Age.
go to metacritic for the user reviews and a lot of ppl don't like the game.
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On March 11 2011 07:01 wacksteven wrote:Shale! Omg...I'll go ahead and blame work for that mistake. Haha. Show nested quote +Does it feel like there's only 1 or 2 right ways to build characters in order to beat the increased difficulty or is customization actually possible? (I remember in DA1 most of the spells and effects were useless on nightmare cause of saving throws and reduced time)
I'm still debating getting this since I want a new rpg to sink my teeth into before I go on spring break. Well, let's put it this way: If you don't have threat loss talents ASAP...you're BONED! You have to watch threat a lot and dump it whenever possible on your dps/healers. I might be doing too much dps though. I was kind of building my parties to maximize their strengths. On hard and nightmare, I think you might need more hp and defense than dps. All in all, the difficulty is much higher on the harder levels than DA:O. Nightmare is the only difficulty with the Friendly Fire. Hard is already pretty tough without it. Unless you do a specific build I could see Nightmare being...well...a nightmare. PS: What kind of builds are people doing? Anything super effective? + Show Spoiler +I've been using Averline as tank, Me as Rogue DPS - looking at stealth right now to drop threat, Bethany as healer/basic CC, Fenris as buffer/2nd dps
I kind of disagree with threat loss at least early in the game so far with my party. It seems very useful in certain situations (in nightmare bosses can like taunt enemies on to anyone) but that situation can also be dealt with by using taunt. Also in a lot of aggro situations there end up being some random bad guy interrupting my mage who my warrior across the map hasn't established any aggro on anyways so I'm best off by just kiting and killing it with a different char.
As far as super effective builds which I alluded to in my other post
+ Show Spoiler +Currently using Aveline/Isabela/Hawk Mage/Anders, Hawk and Anders with chain lightning when aveline pummels (makes chain lightning do 6x damage from CCC and it doesn't FF) Isabela can follow that up with twin fangs (respecced her) and pretty much instant burn down normal bosses in every fight along with some add.
In the future I can add a death hex to that Or since run a Hawk rogue you could add death hex from Merril and the assassin mark from your rogue as the game progresses
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Guys, it's owned by EA. They just want drain all the juice from the game.
It reminds me of DA:O "mods" that you payed 10$, for basically... nothing (except Shale of course).
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I just bought Dragon Age 1 and have put off playing it. I bought it on a whym from a steam sale and have no idea what it is even about heh.
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I agree with the difficulty level, there seems to be a giant spike from normal to hard (haven't really messed with nightmare). I actually found that I couldn't beat the first ogre on hard but that was probably more a reflection on me picking crappy skills to start off and not wanting to spend 10 minutes kiting the thing around.
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Why did you play 3 playthroughs of DA:O?? Please go and buy a game called Baldur's Gate II and play something about 2492384239482798734x better than DA.
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On Mages wearing plate:
I feel like it's a much worse idea in DA2 than in DA:O, assuming I'm comparing to the DA:O BM/AW. I'm just contemplating though; I haven't tried it myself.
Gear: Higher level robes actually have a shitload of armor. My Act 3 mage is wearing robes with 250 armor, and I haven't been able to find plate with more armor. Even if that's just an exceptional piece of gear, there's no huge disparity between plate and cloth armor values in general. Robes also give you the much needed +% elemental damage that will make Nightmare bosses last slightly less of an eon.
Sustained abilities: In DA:O you were able to stack virtually every mage buff, a combination both normally impossible and ridiculously strong. In DA2 there simply aren't that many buffs to stack.
Trade-offs: In DA2 you need to trade 2 stats, both damage and mana, for hitpoints in order to wear plate. With hobbled damage, the plate mage is relegated only to tanking. In DA2, warriors are given a host of survival and threat management skills that trump a mage's repertoire in tanking. If you aim for as much blood magic efficiency (1 more point of mana per health) gear as possible, you'll be foregoing other, better gear choices like the of the Spiral set.
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Anders being back in the game pains me more than anything else, though being unable to change your groups armour comes a close second
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:D can't wait for your review.
I'm playing the game through right now on a male rogue and am only about level 9. My thoughts so far:
- Good combat
- Excellent Story
- Acceptable/Subpar Graphics
- The classes are automatically accessible in DAO2 and you don't have to hunt for trainers which was a big ++ in my opinion, currently leveling in Shadow.
- I'm sort of disappointed in the music, I would really rather play my own music than listen to what is provided in the game... maybe its just me?
- I REALLY don't like how I'm still stuck in Kirkwall.. I'm not sure how much longer I have to stay in the city, but, even at level 9.. I reallly want to leave and never go back..
I may stream my game later this weekend/maybe tmrw evening.
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On March 12 2011 04:26 Stealthypoo wrote:
- I REALLY don't like how I'm still stuck in Kirkwall.. I'm not sure how much longer I have to stay in the city, but, even at level 9.. I reallly want to leave and never go back..
That's the entire game
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On March 12 2011 09:13 RndmGdNck wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2011 04:26 Stealthypoo wrote:
- I REALLY don't like how I'm still stuck in Kirkwall.. I'm not sure how much longer I have to stay in the city, but, even at level 9.. I reallly want to leave and never go back.. That's the entire game
That makes me  immensely... I guess I'll be visiting the brothel a lot since that's one of the few enjoyable parts of the city (my character got offered some favors by a male elf.. lolz no homo. )
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i've been playing on nightmare, it's more important to get positioning and movement right, and obviously to avoid aoe on your allies, at least early game while you don't have as many tactical abilities. i find that taking the fight away from where it starts is crucial to get a little extra breathing time between waves of enemies. generally i first focus down ranged enemies asap, then hit and run normal melee taking care not to get pulled into prolonged exchanges of blows while heavily outnumbered (think marine staggering :p), and finally tackle the elites/boss when all the waves are done. usually need one or two heals or potions per fight handling it this way.
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EPT
