EPTDragon Age 2 - Page 13
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smaddyx
Germany2 Posts
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
On February 24 2011 09:06 Antedelerium wrote: Great analysis of a common mindset nowadays. I thought the demo was fairly entertaining (only went through once as a mage), but, at the same time, people can't read into it too much. It's old and it's a demo. You can't judge a full game by that, but it at least tells you if you would be interested in the final game. I don't know if DA2 is going to be amazing or not, but I do know that I'm even more intrigued now. Side note - did anybody notice a weird thing with the graphics? When I was running with my camera set, it seemed a bit choppy, but when I held down the right mouse button as I ran, the camera got a lot smoother. Bizarre It also factors into character classes. Imagine the complaints if the main character was only a Warrior? Nuts would be busted en masse. The term 'generic fantasy RPG' is appropriate, ironic, and a little bit sad. The world of humans, elves, dwarves, mages, fighters and thieves is so ingrained in medieval fantasy RPG culture its impossible to escape from. I wonder how many people even bothered to play the tiger people or Orcs in Oblivion? It seems there's something attractive about using one of a small number of pre-defined personalities to play, rather than inventing your own. I know I like playing the gruff, bearded, beer-swilling, axe-wielding dwarf. What's wrong with being a gruff, bearded, beer-swilling, axe-wielding human? Well, wouldn't I basically be a lumberjack? That's not very 'fantasy'. | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
On February 24 2011 09:07 Fruscainte wrote: Yeah. Was I the only one who had this little split going across the screen every once in a while? Also, the fucking loading screens man. It's like playing MGS4 all over again. That would be a problem with VSync, or Vertical Sync, that keeps the game's framerate in sync with that of your monitor (or something like that). Try enabling it in the video options. | ||
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Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
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semantics
10040 Posts
On February 24 2011 09:44 Blisse wrote: Played the demo. Was not that bad, but I wished for more customization. Otherwise, it's still a great successor to DAO as far as gameplay goes. Battling was a breeze, except for the Ogre boss where everyone died and I ran in circles waiting for the cooldown on my Fireball to end. Barely won that. i won it easily as a rouge with a bow i nearly died as an elemental mage didn't pay attention to the tank ding lol i'll try a warrior next. | ||
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silentsod
United States198 Posts
On February 23 2011 20:19 accela wrote: well considering that the demo is mostly the prologue of the full game i just cannot see how some people can already criticize it for lack of depth or whatever. I mean is like judging DA:O just by playing the harrowing or the equivalent prologues for the other races. Btw the new faster combat style is not only good looking but help classes to _feel_ much better, especially rogue's combat is vastly superior and on par with what someone would imagine just by reading skills' description and would expect overall from a high dex character. I just played through the mage opening of DA:O and there's already more depth in game play as far as positional management and not burning your friends to death. It's this sort of tactical approach to combat that I enjoy and not the mindless hack and slash push everything off cool down approach to gameplay. Sneaking a rogue around to backstab (and having the animation clearly indicate backstabbery) is a boon and it being missing is vexing to me. Then again I've been stealthing rogues and backstabbing things for a decade. Spells are much more vibrant and interesting, and the art and light direction is superior in DA:O's opening scenes (I play in isometric view and just installed the JBTextures). The core has changed, and while I appreciated the streamlining of a shooter based game (ME), I do not appreciate gutting the tactical gameplay lineage DA:O had inherited from old IE based cRPGs. | ||
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ATeddyBear
Canada2843 Posts
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Durantula
United States108 Posts
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TaKemE
Denmark1045 Posts
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RA
Latvia791 Posts
I just didn't like it. Graphics got worse, only one camera, RPG part... Disappoint! | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
Disappointment first: The art-style changed completely. I don't know why they went with a totally different look for Hurlocks and Ogres. The short-track path through the level, and putting the map at the top right revealing the whole area, kind of made it feel like Fable. Put on top of that, the Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel, totally different animations and a very unfamiliar musical score, it genuinely didn't feel like the same game anymore... until I did the final battle when my mage hit 10% health, I didn't have the heal spell or any poultices, so I just ran around in circles while my party members smacked things that were chasing me...yup. That's Dragon Age. Very, very frustrating they left in that little cheat. Looks like I'll have to play the sequel, forcing myself to stand ground and fight against melee in order to feel like the game is difficult again. Ugh. I can only hope the texture detail is so poor because A) its a demo and B) its meant to be downloaded (size is an issue). I'll be sorely disappointed if they haven't learned their lesson from the original: PC gamers expect higher quality because of the more powerful hardware, and its not a bold thing to ask. Texture replacement is like the easiest thing to do in the whole of the game development industry (well, right behind string replacement). Once again it feels like you're better off just stacking the crap out of one stat until you need a minimum of another stat as a pre-requesite for something. I don't see how Dexterity becomes necessary for a Warrior or Willpower becomes necessary for a Mage. It also annoyed me that holding tab didn't show the health of every creature. That was useful because you could quickly glance at the current state of the battle. Now I have to mouse-over every individual enemy to do that? Argh. Excitement: The usual I suppose. A new combat system to play with and scrutenize, more story in the Dragon Age world, much better graphics and spellcasting, lots of annoyances removed (you can press R to loot everything around you! OH THANK GOD! No more running around, holding tab, right-clicking on 3 different objects in every room and clicking Take All). Overall: I had a feeling that Dragon Age: Origins was the last time we'd see the old-school dialogue system. Even in the expansion you could see how they simplified the dialogue and NPC interaction. No more long dialogue trees to wander through, getting the character to repeat the same things over and over again as you go from page to page hunting for something you haven't asked them, yet. I must have made Sten ask "Why am I not surprised?" a thousand times last weekend. The ME dialogue wheel is 'better', because you can find the kind of answer you want quickly. Do you want to dig for more info? Pick the left option. Do you want to just plod along to the next part of the conversation? Pick one of the 2 or 3 options on the right. But, it takes away some of the magic of the old-school system where you have to read each line, attach your own inner-monologue as a voice, determine the context and intent of the options and then make an appropriate choice. You had to stop and read the options, as opposed to the ME wheel that gives you the ability to just blaze through and pick Green, Purple or Red at your discretion without giving a damn what's actually being said, which is kind of sad. As I was playing, I quickly found myself not really paying attention to the dialogue, because it wasn't my choice anymore. I was just looking around for changes in art as the characters were talking. I couldn't believe how similar they made Carver and Wesley look, to the point that I thought the scene where Aveline saves him was actually Carver, so I was just confused as all hell at that moment. I also couldn't get over Aveline's chin. Fugly. Urgh, I must sound like a die-hard fantasy RPG fanatic. I like the gameplay, and the game world. Dragon Age was the first new kind of fantasy RPG universe to come out of the triple-A industry. I just don't really like how so many things changed, with particular regard to the art style. Instead of keeping a unique style with Dragon Age, they made Dragon Effect and we can expect the same benefits and pitfalls of that franchise. | ||
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Tyree
1508 Posts
It actually feels like you are the Rogue, when he jumps around like a monkey, doing flips and kicks, the way he fights. The sound that are made when you cut people etc. The warrior feels like a big strong guy who relies on strenght and stamina to defeat his opponnents. The mage is very satisfying, Frostbolt spell was really satifsying. And i guess thats the best way to describe the gameplay, its simply fun to actually play. Where as the original was fun becuase of the story, characters and setting and gameplay was "meh" at best. In short, i really really like this game as i was skeptical. Nothing in the original felt like it had any impact, any "thump!", it was all too static, unresponsive, slow and simply belonged in 1998 instead of todays generation of games. Im trying to trash the original but to me, it just wasent fun to play. This one actually is, you can easily say DA2 does for DA1 what ME2 did for ME1. Not everyone will like th change and i understand, but if you are the kind of game who likes twitch fast paced gameplay, you will love DA2 Pre ordered, cant wait! | ||
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zocktol
Germany1928 Posts
And concerning the story in DA:O it was not that good i think, u had a lot of freedom, but the overall story was, as in most fantasy games, rather lackluster. Definit buy for me. | ||
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ArcticVanguard
United States450 Posts
On February 24 2011 05:44 Bibdy wrote: Mana has always been a bad resource mechanic. Either you have it, or you don't. There's no management. You can smash down a doorway and unleash every spell in your arsenal in quick succession, and what did you sacrifice? What would you have gained by waiting to cast those spells? Nothing. You're out of mana, but you just inflicted a shitload of damage/crowd control and the battle is now yours. Now you just regenerate and repeat for the next battle. Cooldowns make you consider where and when you want to use the spell much more than mana does. It's about the choice being available - a lower mana pool as opposed to a cooldown system makes you think about what spells you cast since you can only cast so many of them. | ||
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synapse
China13814 Posts
On February 25 2011 06:55 ArcticVanguard wrote: It's about the choice being available - a lower mana pool as opposed to a cooldown system makes you think about what spells you cast since you can only cast so many of them. Until you buy a shitload of mana potions. | ||
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YoonHo
Canada1043 Posts
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Sitinte
United States499 Posts
On February 26 2011 03:00 YoonHo wrote: I loved the demo. Maybe because my expectations aren't high or I'm just really craving a PC RPG game. BTW, does anyone have spare DA Legends beta key? I want some DLC items haha. No one knows how to get the DLC items from Legends yet. It's been like a month so far and nothing's been revealed. I suppose when closed beta finishes, they'll reveal everything. | ||
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holdthephone
United States523 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.igniq.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/dragon_age_2_hawke_trailer_270810.jpg) I got around to playing the Dragon Age 2 demo. Mixed feelings, to say the least. Not a deep write up here, just kind of winged this as I thought about it. The demo really didn't showcase much, but the feel of the game is pretty clear at this point. The game almosts seems a bit Eastern influenced with the more hack-n-slash approach to combat and the design of the main characters (asian razor cut on female Hawke, haha). Still, I do like the default designs of the Champion -- both look pretty badass. Aside from primary characters though, secondary characters still look incredibly generic. Males and females reuse the same model, so it almost feels like an MMO as opposed to a dedicated single-player experience (old women still have the same bodies as young women, for example). Hair looks terrible, save for your own. In terms of cinematics I'm impressed and turned off at the same time. It's obviously going for a more movie-like approach like how Mass Effect changed with its sequel -- but with Dragon Age it just feels incredibly awkward. Cutscenes stutter in between frame changes, dialogue is stilted and unnatural despite some really great voice work, and animations are of the most basic level. The demo was clearly jumping around though to give you a look into other parts of the game, so perhaps the full game will flow more smoothly. The original had great side stories even with the poorly made cinematics, but it's still strange to see the huge difference in effort Bioware puts towards DA as opposed to their ME franchise. Character interaction and dialogue is still too hard to judge at this point. I feel the dialogue wheel will make that portion of the game less deep than the original's -- but that's what they are obviously going for, so you're either a fan or you're not. As said before, the cinematics really weren't that great and the demo introduced characters and killed them off seconds later so it was really hard to care when they tried to pull the drama card on you. Just seemed like filler so you can play with moral decisions -- hopefully that doesn't become a staple of the game. Combat is...interesting. I played a warrior just to get a basic gist of it. Since the game is more fast-paced and mechanically focused, the Tactics menu will probably get 200x more use than the original's did. People are going to want to run around playing Dynasty Warrior and won't want to worry about using the clumsy party command interface that DA2 seems to be sporting right now -- so hopefully the tactics menu will be easy to use. It's much more action-focused and I was impressed by the battle animations. Not too much to say about the combat in general though, since the demo really just gave you the most basic of battles to play around with. Hacking away and spamming cool-downs isn't really enough to understand the full game at this point. Warriors tend to be a boring class, but hopefully there's more to the encounters than slashing and pausing for the occasional health pot. The game does not feel as smooth as a dedicated action game which makes sense, but at the same time it occasionally feels a bit cheap given the overall presentation -- and it may just be me, but I feel the game stutters. ![[image loading]](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/07/da2firstscreens02-580.jpg) Not much has seemed to improve visually for Dragon Age's sequel No effort was made to make the A.I. adapt to the new combat type, it seems. Attacking is attacking. There's no interesting animations from the enemy or intricacy to the melee, it's just slashing. While this really isn't an actual issue, as many games do this, I'm curious as to how interesting Bioware will be able to make the encounters beyond stepping out of the way of thrown boulders and potion spamming. I'm a fan of the skill trees, just seems more satisfying than the previous interface. Moves will no doubt look cooler in DA2, so that's always something to look forward to. They do not let you mess with the inventory screen in the demo, but for the love of god it better be improved over the original. Overall, I'm definitely going to hold out here. I think it's cool Bioware is trying to be more trendy with it's new games, but with DA2 I'm rather bummed out on how old the game looks. It's not insulting to the eyes but boy does it look dated. I think the new combat and dialogue will make some more fans, but I'm not entirely confident that Bioware will have a cool story in place here, based on their recent works. A big concern here is that the first Dragon Age worked around its poor presentation with great side plots and amazing lore. DA2 looks to be more superficial in that respect, so consider me worried. Thoughts on the demo? Did it feel a bit..unpolished to anyone else? | ||
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Rayeth
United States883 Posts
That said, the combat did feel a lot faster paced in this demo compared to DA:O. I also didn't feel like there was any point to controlling the AI characters as I could just rotate all the cooldowns on my character (rogue melee and rogue archer played) and keep myself busy and kill all the enemies. I can't tell if that is because of the difficulty level (locked at normal in the demo) or the ease of the game in general. I did play DA:O on Hard. Also was I hallucinating or was there no Friendly Fire from spells? That is a terrible loss, though considering mages feel much less powerful overall, maybe not an important one. | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
On February 26 2011 08:57 Rayeth wrote: I can't tell if that is because of the difficulty level (locked at normal in the demo) or the ease of the game in general. I did play DA:O on Hard. Also was I hallucinating or was there no Friendly Fire from spells? That is a terrible loss, though considering mages feel much less powerful overall, maybe not an important one. Yeah, there's no friendly fire. If its like DA:O, there'll be increased friendly fire in Hard and Nightmare (presumably 50% in Hard, 100% in Nightmare going by their track record). The actual differences in combat mechanics between Hard and Nightmare in DA:O were laughably weak. http://www.dragonage-wiki.com/origins/difficulty The difference between normal and hard was really just double the amount of friendly fire (from 50% to 100%). Almost everything else is negligible. Going From Hard to Nightmare mode was even LESS of a difference. I browsed the Bioware forums a lot back when this game was released and these were enormous issues brought up time and time again. They utterly screwed the pooch on difficulty. I even made a mod that put a shared cooldown on potions, so you couldn't just spam every type of potion in quick succession just so I could find myself in situations where a character might actually fall over unconscious in the middle of a fight, heaven forbid. Nothing would shock me more than if they had absolutely TONS of feedback from players of the original, about how the difficulty was horrifically lackluster, and they just repeat the same mistake. I don't even want to imagine that. | ||
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