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MarshalMeLee
Canada42 Posts
Combat was more visually appealing and there were some good characters. Voiced Hawke was good and helped saved it from the silent protagonist thing. But the story, music, and general setting felt much less developed than DAO. Ending was a little weak and much less epic than the first. Its worth a 7-7.5/10. I don't regret buying the game full price, but I'm expecting something much better for ME3. | ||
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Zocat
Germany2229 Posts
Overall I like the game until now, but there are so many small mistakes/errors/design decisions (and some major ones) which annoy me. It started with the character creation. I cannot modify the iconic Hawke. And I cannot use the hairstyle the female iconic Hawke has for other appearances. I think DA2 was the game that got me googling & modding the game the fastest. But it was fixable  Then I miss certain small stuff in the UI (from DAO). Different weapon sets. Disabling tactics with one click. It still has that stupid AOE-Locking (and it cannot be disabled) so aiming AOEs is damn difficult (FF on nightmare^^). The change to the "Hold position" command annoys me as well. I like to scout ahead with my rogue (stealth ...), so I can assess the situation. Then some of the mobs seem to be on speed and move ultrafast until they hit melee combat. This seems very strange and feels stupid (they suddenly move slower in melee combat) And I cannot change the armor of my companions. I find a shitton of mage/rogue loot, but have to sell it, because I can give it to no one. I really liked to give Allistair King Cailan's armor. Would seem really strange if my PC would wear that kind of armor. And almost all the upgrades can be found on merchants. If they at least would be accesible via quests it would increase the bonding to the NPCs. Immersion wise I also have some problems. I dont talk to merchants, I trade with boxes! Also a lot of NPCs in the city arent clickable (not even a "leave me alone"). Same with the "negative space" shit - no it doesnt add to the game if we have reach environments who are empty. But my major criticism (end of act 1 spoiler): + Show Spoiler + I dont like Anders. I hate him. But I need one healer in my group. Merrill cannot heal, so I played with Bethany until now. They younger sister, sister bonding, but she still needs to be protected from the older sister. So I played through Deep Roads. Oh - Infected. Dead. Reload, leaving her at home this time. Oh - captured by the Templars. They take away my only healer (aside from the retarded Anders). And they dont use a good way to tell that. I was emotionally involved when my Warden sacrificed herself at the end of DAO. I was angry at Morrigan when she left the group at the eve of battle. When the templars take Bethany. Nothing. It doesnt make sense. And even then - she's a Circle Mage now. And she cannot leave and adventure? The damn captain of the guard (Aveline) can leave the job & adventure with Hawke. It just doesnt make sense. Luckily - some genius was able to enable the character again via modding. So I'd say - at least they give the community the tools to fix most of their problems. Waiting for the DA2 Toolset and what people will be able to do with that. Oh: Music - just WAY inferior compared to DAO (or ME1). | ||
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Centric
United States1989 Posts
Biggest issues I have are the recycled dungeon maps and the stupid ending which makes no damn sense. + Show Spoiler + Orsino doing blood magic? How did Meredith get that sword? | ||
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Arkedo
United States95 Posts
On March 21 2011 04:50 Zocat wrote: But my major criticism (end of act 1 spoiler): + Show Spoiler + I dont like Anders. I hate him. But I need one healer in my group. Merrill cannot heal, so I played with Bethany until now. They younger sister, sister bonding, but she still needs to be protected from the older sister. So I played through Deep Roads. Oh - Infected. Dead. Reload, leaving her at home this time. Oh - captured by the Templars. They take away my only healer (aside from the retarded Anders). And they dont use a good way to tell that. I was emotionally involved when my Warden sacrificed herself at the end of DAO. I was angry at Morrigan when she left the group at the eve of battle. When the templars take Bethany. Nothing. It doesnt make sense. And even then - she's a Circle Mage now. And she cannot leave and adventure? The damn captain of the guard (Aveline) can leave the job & adventure with Hawke. It just doesnt make sense. Luckily - some genius was able to enable the character again via modding. I also dont like Anders at at all, but mainly because if your a male char it is almost impossible to make this fool your friend with out starting a romance with him, I mean what the hell. What does my friendship with him have to do with me wanting to romance Isabella or some other chick in the game. end of act 1 spoiler + Show Spoiler + There are actually 3 different things that can happen to your sister, The death to infection and becoming a Circle mage are correct. However, if you take Anders with you to the deep roads with Bethany he will save her from the infection by turning her into a Grey Warden. | ||
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Zocat
Germany2229 Posts
On March 21 2011 05:58 Arkedo wrote: I also dont like Anders at at all, but mainly because if your a male char it is almost impossible to make this fool your friend with out starting a romance with him, I mean what the hell. What does my friendship with him have to do with me wanting to romance Isabella or some other chick in the game. end of act 1 spoiler + Show Spoiler + There are actually 3 different things that can happen to your sister, The death to infection and becoming a Circle mage are correct. However, if you take Anders with you to the deep roads with Bethany he will save her from the infection by turning her into a Grey Warden. + Show Spoiler + But I read the Grey Warden option doesnt make her available as a character sooner? She would join the endfight just like if she'd become a warden. Am I wrong (and my sources^^) | ||
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user111
Canada47 Posts
however this game sucked, it just lacked soul | ||
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Obsidian
United States350 Posts
But that's me. | ||
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FrostWyrm
United States10 Posts
I honestly don't expect that much from sequels, I take them as an entirely different game nowadays, I've been let down too many times by sequels, so I just... stopped looking at them as sequels I guess | ||
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Arkedo
United States95 Posts
On March 21 2011 06:46 Zocat wrote: + Show Spoiler + But I read the Grey Warden option doesnt make her available as a character sooner? She would join the endfight just like if she'd become a warden. Am I wrong (and my sources^^) I have no Idea i kinda stopped playing when I got to the deep roads. But if any ones know it would be helpful. | ||
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kheldorin
Singapore539 Posts
I loaded up my save game. It felt like such a grind so I lowered it from Hard to Normal. I remember enjoying playing on Hard but I have no idea why now. After 10 mins, I could not stand it so I lowered it to easy. 10 mins later I just quit. I've had more fun grinding in some crappy MMO. The loading times were horrible too. Everything felt so much slower. I just think DA2 suffered from alot of bad PR and the criticisms just snowballed. If not for the story, there is no real reason to replay DA:0. Just thinking of the deep roads right now makes me go UGH. I just want to finish awakenings as fast as possible so I can go back to playing DA2. | ||
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The Chief
Australia138 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:07 kheldorin wrote: I'm trying to play DA:O again and Awakenings for the first time so that I can get to know Ander's story but I just can't do it. I don't know why people like DA:O over DA2. You're kidding..... right? | ||
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antelope591
Canada820 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:07 kheldorin wrote: I'm trying to play DA:O again and Awakenings for the first time so that I can get to know Ander's story but I just can't do it. I don't know why people like DA:O over DA2. I loaded up my save game. It felt like such a grind so I lowered it from Hard to Normal. I remember enjoying playing on Hard but I have no idea why now. After 10 mins, I could not stand it so I lowered it to easy. 10 mins later I just quit. I've had more fun grinding in some crappy MMO. The loading times were horrible too. Everything felt so much slower. I just think DA2 suffered from alot of bad PR and the criticisms just snowballed. If not for the story, there is no real reason to replay DA:0. Just thinking of the deep roads right now makes me go UGH. I just want to finish awakenings as fast as possible so I can go back to playing DA2. There's plenty of posts going into lots of detail of why ppl preferred the first game. But seriously...you had an issue with the deep roads in the first game but not with the shitty excuse for deep roads in the second? If not for the cool golem boss it might as well have been another dungeon with the same 5 templates used the whole game -_-. | ||
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kheldorin
Singapore539 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:38 antelope591 wrote: There's plenty of posts going into lots of detail of why ppl preferred the first game. But seriously...you had an issue with the deep roads in the first game but not with the shitty excuse for deep roads in the second? If not for the cool golem boss it might as well have been another dungeon with the same 5 templates used the whole game -_-. But the thing is I've already played DA:O once. So I already saw the scenery. And I already know the story. The novelty of discovering new stuff is gone. So the only thing keeping me going is the combat. Deep roads has the most "trash" mobs. There's no specifc quest for them. There's just alot of them.I just want to get on with the story. Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if it was DA2 combat. But the combat is sooo slow. It doesn't help that I'm playing a 2-handed warrior. The animations are not great either. With DA2 just like ME2, I can definitely see myself replaying it more than twice. | ||
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Ioannis
Greece62 Posts
Lack of healers in companions ... If Skyrim was out, i wouldnt have player this ... seriously And yeah i played it, did all the quests got all the weapons, all the armours, tried all the spells ... And yet ... i feel like completing the game didn't really do something for me ... final boss was way too easy ... Ch1 boss was a lot harder if you ask me ... i'd give the game a 5/10 | ||
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kheldorin
Singapore539 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:58 Ioannis wrote: I always play the mage .... and this was meant to be played as Warrior obviously.... Lack of healers in companions ... If Skyrim was out, i wouldnt have player this ... seriously And yeah i played it, did all the quests got all the weapons, all the armours, tried all the spells ... And yet ... i feel like completing the game didn't really do something for me ... final boss was way too easy ... Ch1 boss was a lot harder if you ask me ... i'd give the game a 5/10 Yeah, that is what I liked about ME2. You don't really need a specific party composiition. A healer isn't an issue for me as a mage I just spend 2 points in heal and that was enough. But I'm gonna play a 2-handed warrior the 2nd time round and I'm still trying to figure out how I can do that without bringing the only tank companion as I already used him in my 1st playthrough. Reading up it seems that in the harder modes, I will need a proper tank. I thought the High Dragon is C3 is much more difficult than the final boss. The final boss was kinda disappointing. I guess they had to balance for the fact that depending on the playthrough you might not have all your party with you. They should have just scaled the difficulty based on how many party members are left. | ||
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antelope591
Canada820 Posts
On March 21 2011 12:14 kheldorin wrote: Yeah, that is what I liked about ME2. You don't really need a specific party composiition. A healer isn't an issue for me as a mage I just spend 2 points in heal and that was enough. But I'm gonna play a 2-handed warrior the 2nd time round and I'm still trying to figure out how I can do that without bringing the only tank companion as I already used him in my 1st playthrough. Reading up it seems that in the harder modes, I will need a proper tank. I thought the High Dragon is C3 is much more difficult than the final boss. The final boss was kinda disappointing. I guess they had to balance for the fact that depending on the playthrough you might not have all your party with you. They should have just scaled the difficulty based on how many party members are left. You don't need a tank on higher difficulties...you can do most battles even without a healer. The only time you need a tank is if you're doing the bosses without kiting. 2H wars destroy everything with AOE dmg even on nightmare. Just bring a mage for brittle and you're good to go | ||
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ApocAlypsE007
Israel1007 Posts
So far what bugs me: -Im fine with the conversation style of Mass Effect. Im not fine with ME1 style area recycling. Sure DAO areas were bland somewhat, but at least its not the same cave over and over. -Characterwise: WHAT THE HELL DID THEY DO TO ANDERS??? Where is the light hearted mage I liked from Awakening? Fenris and Sebastian- not that interesting. -The graphics are too boring in my taste. Nothing took my breath away like some areas of DAO and ME2. | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:07 kheldorin wrote: I'm trying to play DA:O again and Awakenings for the first time so that I can get to know Ander's story but I just can't do it. I don't know why people like DA:O over DA2. I loaded up my save game. It felt like such a grind so I lowered it from Hard to Normal. I remember enjoying playing on Hard but I have no idea why now. After 10 mins, I could not stand it so I lowered it to easy. 10 mins later I just quit. I've had more fun grinding in some crappy MMO. The loading times were horrible too. Everything felt so much slower. I just think DA2 suffered from alot of bad PR and the criticisms just snowballed. If not for the story, there is no real reason to replay DA:0. Just thinking of the deep roads right now makes me go UGH. I just want to finish awakenings as fast as possible so I can go back to playing DA2. Had a similar experience loading up the Baldur's Gate series this weekend. Since DA2 I've been having an itch to play the series again and see if I could put myself in the shoes of these people who absolutely adore the Infinity engine RPG games of the past (the same ones I absolutely adored in my teenage years). I spent about an hour installing the two games, plus their expansions, Baldur's Gate Tutu and the widescreen mod, spent another hour hammering that 'Reroll' button to get decent stats for my Neutral Evil Elf Cleric, got into the game aaaand...bored in about an hour. The combat is just a gigantic headache when you've got to reload four times because some stupid wolf one or two-shots one of your characters in an instant. Level-one balance, and the AD&D system is just so horrifically bad it blows my mind. Sure, its great when you're playing pen & paper and the DM is there to force you to stick to your decisions, but it translates to bad, random, unfair annoying gameplay in a video-game. The combat just feels like busy-work to get to the next magical item, or move on to the next part of the story. I remember the interface being praised back in the day, but good lord. The number of clicks you've got to make to cast spells is just obnoxious, particularly when you'll spend over half your time just casting heals or magic missiles on cue. If you like thieving, its just an exercise in patience waiting for some NPC to pick a new random location on the map to wander to that just happens to be out of sight of the chest you want to rob. Keeping track of which containers you've scavenged from is also a giant PITA, since they don't disappear once looted, and there are like 20 non-critical homes in Beregost to wander through. Plus, the main character felt like a paranoid schizophrenic. One minute I can be a bit of a conniving douche, the next minute I'm thrust into a conversation where all of the options are super lovely, happy politeness. The dialogue choices are just totally inconsistent and probably the most annoying part is missing entire quests (Perdue's sword, the ring for that lady at the front of the Friendly Arm etc.) because you've got to pick exactly the right dialogue options. Pick the wrong one (and a completely harmless one at that) and that NPC just runs off or doesn't speak to you again. I did a bunch of googling to remind myself of all the various companions you can get in the game and it quickly dawned on me that it just plain doesn't matter who I pick. Companion involvement is almost non-existent in the series compared to DA2. BG2 had an interesting quest chain for each companion, but then so does DA2. PST had a truly amazing level of companion involvement that was totally awesome (changing your spec through conversation, learning new spells/abilities through dialogues with them etc.), but its not like that system made its way into the other ye-olde Bioware games. The companions in BG1, and 2 to an extent, really don't have a whole lot to say, or even do with the story itself. Nostalgia is a funny thing. It wasn't a completely wasteful venture, though. It made me appreciate, that much more, the kinds of things that video game developers pay attention to in modern gaming. Primarily, spending a lot of time axing the things that will just plain irritate the player. I'm now in my 2nd playthrough of DA2, just started Act 2 and its really cool to see how the decisions you made in the mini-stories of Act 1 affect how things play out in Act 2 (and presumeably Act 3). Sure, the overall outcome is basically the same, but I have a hard time thinking of a PC RPG where the finale is truly awe-inspiringly different depending on your decisions. What would BG1 be like if you could roleplay your way out of simply going to the Nashkel Mines just because? Where's the option in BG2 that lets you say to hell with Imoen/Irenicus? No matter what your decisions in DAO, you wind-up following the exact same story, but the cool thing is, different decisions in there throw completely different quests at you in DA2 - I'm glad I took the time to play through DAO two times a few weeks ago to see all these different changes in DA2. As for DA2, the combat's just plain great and doesn't feel like a giant headache that's standing in the way of the next part of the story + Show Spoiler + except that godamned Rock Wraith. I set the difficulty down to casual for that because I wasn't going to go through another 20-minute borefest like last time - that fight hates melee more than the entirety of WoW: Cataclysm's raiding I'm having a lot of fun, and its definitely time to take these old RPGs and put them back on the shelf for a long time. Maybe when I've been stricken with an ailing memory, and I've forgotten enough of the stories of games like BG and PST, it'll be worth slogging through the rest of the game to get at the story once again. Or maybe if someone recreates them with modern game design ideals (get rid of the annoying shit!) in mind. | ||
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DJEtterStyle
United States2766 Posts
On March 22 2011 01:11 Bibdy wrote: Had a similar experience loading up the Baldur's Gate series this weekend. Since DA2 I've been having an itch to play the series again and see if I could put myself in the shoes of these people who absolutely adore the Infinity engine RPG games of the past (the same ones I absolutely adored in my teenage years). I spent about an hour installing the two games, plus their expansions, Baldur's Gate Tutu and the widescreen mod, spent another hour hammering that 'Reroll' button to get decent stats for my Neutral Evil Elf Cleric, got into the game aaaand...bored in about an hour. The combat is just a gigantic headache when you've got to reload four times because some stupid wolf one or two-shots one of your characters in an instant. Level-one balance, and the AD&D system is just so horrifically bad it blows my mind. Sure, its great when you're playing pen & paper and the DM is there to force you to stick to your decisions, but it translates to bad, random, unfair annoying gameplay in a video-game. The combat just feels like busy-work to get to the next magical item, or move on to the next part of the story. I remember the interface being praised back in the day, but good lord. The number of clicks you've got to make to cast spells is just obnoxious, particularly when you'll spend over half your time just casting heals or magic missiles on cue. If you like thieving, its just an exercise in patience waiting for some NPC to pick a new random location on the map to wander to that just happens to be out of sight of the chest you want to rob. Keeping track of which containers you've scavenged from is also a giant PITA, since they don't disappear once looted, and there are like 20 non-critical homes in Beregost to wander through. Plus, the main character felt like a paranoid schizophrenic. One minute I can be a bit of a conniving douche, the next minute I'm thrust into a conversation where all of the options are super lovely, happy politeness. The dialogue choices are just totally inconsistent and probably the most annoying part is missing entire quests (Perdue's sword, the ring for that lady at the front of the Friendly Arm etc.) because you've got to pick exactly the right dialogue options. Pick the wrong one (and a completely harmless one at that) and that NPC just runs off or doesn't speak to you again. I did a bunch of googling to remind myself of all the various companions you can get in the game and it quickly dawned on me that it just plain doesn't matter who I pick. Companion involvement is almost non-existent in the series compared to DA2. BG2 had an interesting quest chain for each companion, but then so does DA2. PST had a truly amazing level of companion involvement that was totally awesome (changing your spec through conversation, learning new spells/abilities through dialogues with them etc.), but its not like that system made its way into the other ye-olde Bioware games. The companions in BG1, and 2 to an extent, really don't have a whole lot to say, or even do with the story itself. Nostalgia is a funny thing. It wasn't a completely wasteful venture, though. It made me appreciate, that much more, the kinds of things that video game developers pay attention to in modern gaming. Primarily, spending a lot of time axing the things that will just plain irritate the player. I'm now in my 2nd playthrough of DA2, just started Act 2 and its really cool to see how the decisions you made in the mini-stories of Act 1 affect how things play out in Act 2 (and presumeably Act 3). Sure, the overall outcome is basically the same, but I have a hard time thinking of a PC RPG where the finale is truly awe-inspiringly different depending on your decisions. What would BG1 be like if you could roleplay your way out of simply going to the Nashkel Mines just because? Where's the option in BG2 that lets you say to hell with Imoen/Irenicus? No matter what your decisions in DAO, you wind-up following the exact same story, but the cool thing is, different decisions in there throw completely different quests at you in DA2 - I'm glad I took the time to play through DAO two times a few weeks ago to see all these different changes in DA2. As for DA2, the combat's just plain great and doesn't feel like a giant headache that's standing in the way of the next part of the story + Show Spoiler + except that godamned Rock Wraith. I set the difficulty down to casual for that because I wasn't going to go through another 20-minute borefest like last time - that fight hates melee more than the entirety of WoW: Cataclysm's raiding I'm having a lot of fun, and its definitely time to take these old RPGs and put them back on the shelf for a long time. Maybe when I've been stricken with an ailing memory, and I've forgotten enough of the stories of games like BG and PST, it'll be worth slogging through the rest of the game to get at the story once again. Or maybe if someone recreates them with modern game design ideals (get rid of the annoying shit!) in mind. Good post. I loved Baldur's Gate 2. I still regard it as one of the best RPGs ever created. But like most games, even great games, it hasn't aged well. I've tried to play it a few times over the years, and I tend to stop the moment I have to loot more than four creatures after a large fight. The number of clicks it takes to do anything is just painful. The interface is so archaic that you feel like you're fighting it more often than you're fighting enemies. It's not something that should be recommended to RPG newbies, any more than you'd recommend someone play Ultima IV over Ultima IX, even though the former is the far better game. Viewing the world through rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia is not proof of a better past. | ||
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L6-636536
United States94 Posts
Stones Throw into Fatiguing Fog > Ensare > Walking Bomb > Instant AoE Decimation Fenris is great because his abilities are that of a light templar / reaver and all of his attacks generate stagger making chain lightning outrageously OP after Merril knocks everyone out of the fog where Fenris can start generating this devastating combo in addition to your rogue taking advantage of everything the three put out As for Fenris Tank just grab barrier on one or two mages and start casting it when his hp starts to drop as he does waaaaaayyy more damage as his HP drops and as his damage goes up he kills more which in turn makes him faster and have even more AoE DPS. The Idea I think is that with a all DPS team you want to CC as much as possible or do so much damage that fights end before they begin. | ||
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