[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
[quote]grayman19 wrote:
I gave up on Dragon Age II. The graphics were somehow worse than Dragon Age I, but still lagged my system more because it uses DX11. The story seemed subpar to me, by which I mean, better than most games but noticeably below Bioware’s usual incredibly high standard. The combat system is too streamlined for me, but that is more or a personal choice than Bioware’s fault as I liked the difficult micro managing in DA1. Replay value is almost non existant, because any class variation in the main character is always covered by party members with the streamlined system. Also, the enviroments are irritatingly similar, with you running back and forth to various events across the EXACT SAME MAP over and over.
It looks like Bioware just put this game on cruise control and rushed it out, rather than polishing it to perfection like they usually do. ME3 can be exactly the same as ME2, minus planet mining and I’ll be happy. That game plays like a movie. [/quote]
I agree for the most part. The only suggestion/question I have is, did you install the high resolution textures on top of using direct 11? That gave the gfx noticably more pop.[/quote]
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD:
Yeah, DA2 has some really obvious things going on that make you think it was rushed out, and possibly a not-too-great console port?
As mentioned, the graphics… The magic effects are better I’d say, and the characters faces (though oddly enough nowhere close to ME 1 or 2)… But geez, they really got rid of a lot of the shader effects on the char models (clothes and equipment especially), the texture quality is horrible most of the time, a serious downgrade especially when it comes to the char model clothes, reflections on metal etc… Environmental textures are low quality and environmental effects (lava and whatever) are really outdated.
I could understand not going overboard with the details on your enemies’ gear… But your own sword ought to look better than what Ragnar swung around in Rune anno 1998 or whenever that one came out… Seriously, WHY IS THIS GAME SLOWER THAN DA1 IF MOST OF THE LEVEL OF DETAIL HAS BEEN REDUCED TO THE STANDARD OF GAMES MANY YEARS OLDER?
Overall the city is not particularly pretty either… I mean, you spend most of the game there, so couldn’t they make it a little prettier?
They re-use the same maps in different locations (same warehouse, same outskirts maps etc)… Please, that one is so very obvious…
And as mentioned, the performance is way down compared to DA1, even though 2 looks overall no better, worse in quite a few places… And only slightly better in a few.
This could still be fixed in upcoming patches though… At least to a degree.
The High Res Texture pack helps, but yeah…
Another thing to mention here: Characters fighting each other still do it the way it was in 1998. That is, they stand in front of each other and hack away, not using their shields/defending etc… Dragon age one had a similar issue, although sometimes you’d see someone guard against a strike I believe.
Thing is… This was already done way better in neverwinter nights 1. So what the hell?
A DLC plus texture pack before the game launched… Ridiculous.
Another disappointment for me was the companion banter while you’re running around.
It feels like the conversations between Morrigan and Alistair etc in the first game were funnier overall and the voice actors sounded more into it, like they were actually talking to each other… In DA2 it often feels (with a few exceptions) like the VA’s are talking to themselves in a somewhat apathetic fashion, esp. Aveline and Isabella… The tone of voice used does not seem to quite match the conversations, same for Varric here and there, even though the voices fit per se.
Dialogues also end in the wrong places imo… It feels like there should be a comeback or something from the other char, but nothing happens, conversation over after an arbitrary number of exchanges.
This was definitely better in the original.
There is also less companion interaction over the same time-frame it seems, you can’t even start conversations with them at a whim anymore… Only if they want something…
You also sometimes get rivalry points for certain companions when you (or at least I) really didn’t expect to get any…
A few more things… There is, to the best of my knowledge, no big bad-ass male char around. Just you if you play a male. Only 2 skinny gay/bisexual guys. One of which hits on your male PC and gets annoyed if you tell him you don’t swing that way. Okay. That one caught me off-guard.
I don’t mind homosexuality in games. (especially pretty lesbians, bwahahaha) But at least balance it out a bit? Or make one of the gay guys a bad-ass character? Is that too much to ask? An elf with 11 inch arms, and then you make him fight with a sword that was probably stolen from a Final Fantasy main char?
Oh, and the elves are, again, ugly. Except worse this time. Not so much that they look like old skinny people anymore, now they’re skinny and have really weird facial structures… Whatever happened to the whole “ethereal beauty” thing?
Now, on to the classes etc:
My first issue: In order to use better gear, you need to fulfill the requirements, usually a high enough score in the 2 class stats (i.e. strength and con as a warrior).
Your primary stat always increases the attack value and damage of your class. Str for warriors, Dex for rogues, Magic for mages. Plus it has another effect, like Dex increasing crit chance for everyone.
The second does whatever it does to all classes as far as I can recall.
Now you could level the other stats. But you will miss those points for your primary stats then… Now what? Except perhaps for health there is literally no reason to up a non-class stat.
Why did they simplify things this way, but no further? I mean, just get rid of the whole stat increase thing and make it automatic ala JRPG because there is no point to it anymore, anyway. Or make it more complex so that it feels like it actually makes sense to plan this out in different ways?
Another thing: Updating your equipment is pretty much the same… It gets a little tedious, because you never really get enough different stuff of good quality to be able to implement different strategies here… Mostly you just get better versions of the same gear… The game designers apparently realized that and made it so that your companions armor updates automatically (you can only choose your own), and in the case of Varric, even the weapon does (a weapon which, I might add, is considerably less bad-ass than advertised).
Next is the balance between the char classes.
-Mage trumps everything. Looks pretty cool when doing standard attacks, too. Most useful class really, can do crowd control, debilitate boss enemies, buff the party… Could perhaps use some higher damage spells for single strong enemies, but that’s what you have rogues for I guess.
May do less DPS than warriors etc, but has the advantage of often doing magical damage of some sort, while most enemies are somewhat resistant to physical damage… My mages do more damage than my warriors usually, despite the lower DPS numbers.
-Rogues amusingly enough tend to do more damage than two-hand warriors. You can get your critical chance so high you do them almost every hit even without extra abilities. You will do higher crit damage. You have two weapons (or a bow if you’re stupid, I guess. Or maybe there’s something to these that I haven’t figured out yet?), each of which do close to or at times better damage than two-handed weapons of the same “level”.
Have lots of high damage moves, but no real crowd pleasers.
Thing is, the high damage stuff is nice against regular “elite” guys or whatever you call them, but make little difference against real bosses it seems…
Lots of abilities to choose from… Good specialization options…
Only real reason you need these guys on the lower difficulties is so you can open chests and get XP from disarming traps (get XP from the chests too). On higher difficulties the stealth abilities (when maxed out) can help in difficult battles etc, but ultimately this class is really just a low health, high damage, single-enemy attacking fighter.
-Fighter with shield and sword: Only one anti-crowd thing (well, another that mostly pushes enemies away), lowest damage of all classes for his main weapon… Highest DEF… Combined with elemental protection skills etc this is the tank of the game.
-Fighter with two-handed weapon: Hits multiple enemies if they are in the way of his standard swings, has multiple anti-crowd skills… Specialize as a templar and you get yet another one… Still, mages are stronger against crowds, and rogues are stronger against single enemies… These guys look cool but all they really have on the other classes is health.
Another issue is that if you control one yourself, his swings may push back the enemy too much and the warrior will disengage due to that. Means you have to click on a target again. Can be an issue because sometimes you have to reposition the camera first so that your little toe or whatever is no longer in front of the enemy, causing the game to think that he’s hidden and can’t be clicked on.
In the higher difficulties, I’ve found that fighers are really only good as tanks and to attract enemy attention (via abilities) away from mages and rogues. 2 hand fighters become kind of obsolete then… Though you can still turn them into so-so tanks…
Overall, the class balance feels way skewed and at times down-right illogical to me. A fighter ought to be a lot stronger with his standard attacks than rogue (or mage at close range/melee), perhaps hit more often, whatever. Yet a single dagger often does more damage than a battle axe. Of course rogues should have all sorts of high damage assassination moves… But why are warriors so weak?
Unless I’m fighting a “critter” class enemy (really weak, short health bar), then it often feels like my warrior would take hours to defeat his opponent on his own. Ridiculous.
The classes roles’ seem a little too pre-defined to me…
Boss fights are also boring as hell. You need a million hits to kill one, even with all your abilities, so it’s just your guys standing around the boss and attacking until their arms fall off/abilities can be used again etc… Occasionally heal or chug down a potion…
There are cross-class combos available which should make this more fun, but they have certain requirements… For example, each class can inflict certain status ailments on the enemy. Warriors can stagger, mages can make enemies brittle etc.
Other classes have certain abilities that do 200-600 % extra damage to enemies affected with the right status ailment.
But these ailments only work against “normal” enemies in most cases… Where you don’t usually need them… You can just cast fire storm/rain, tempest, arrow rain, whirlwind etc on regular crowds, or backstab etc on stronger regular enemies…
Against real bosses, often the status ailments don’t work, hence no cross-class combos, hence no way to make battles shorter or more interesting… Not much available in terms of different strategies… You could do some stealth plus whatever antics with the rogue, but in the end even his special abilities don’t do much damage and it would just make things more complicated…
So… It’s not that the combat etc is horrible, but it all feels a little meh after a while.
I really miss Baldur’s Gate 2’s approach to things. Except for the graphics it’s STILL miles ahead of DA in most if not all aspects.
Now, for the good parts… Hm, the dialogue wheel was implemented well. The “the wheel says this, the char says something else”-issue rarely comes up imo.
Erm.
Well.
I didn’t really like the combat in DA 1, and while the DA2 system has a lot of things that make me go “meh”, it is at least more fluent and action-rich… So I guess that’s a plus.
There’s really not much that it does better than the first…
Overall, of course the game isn’t bad or anything. It just feels like a dragon age 1 alpha version or something in many areas, or perhaps like an expansion pack?
I’m still playing it though…
