ha! you havent played games in the olden days because in the olden days everything went 1 way!Mirrorknight said:
(yes iknow you were joking)
BioWare Dev Explains Why Dragon Age II Is Easier Than Origins
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
(yes iknow you were joking)
I played DA:O on easy and I'm not ashamed to say it. Personally, I find micromanaging all 4 party members, clicking a new spell or talent for every character every 10 seconds to be incredibly tedious and detrimental to combat flow. I'll stick with this game's normal tyvm.
Did you play Origins without patching it on the PC by any chance? Difficulty was actually lowered because straight Origins (on the PC; Xbox was ALWAYS easier because it had to be) was much harder on Normal than it should've been. Much, much harder; you needed to micromanage quite a bit more than was fitting for Normal.KeyMaster45 said:
That's one thing everyone should be aware of--PC is harder than Xbox; unpatched PC is harder than patched PC. This results in a lot of confusion about Origins' difficulty.
Ahhh. Yes, the rogue seems to now be the squishiest. Two-handed warrior doesn't do enough damage as of the demo; according to Stan Woo QA testing made it do more because it can take so long to hack on that ogre if your mage goes down. It's long enough for the rogue, but for the two-hander it gets almost tedious, especially if you chose mostly defensive abilities.trollnystan said:
That was the beginning of the game. But by all means, play it on hard--this time it's actually made for people like you instead of Origins' arbitrary difficulties that didn't fit their labels.Mcface said:
Nightmare, for instance, features friendly fire from EVERYTHING. This seems to include normal sword-swings from your companions, according to a friend I had who played the demo with a mod that unlocks difficulty, not just simple abilities. Friendly fire actually means Business this time, not just fireballs.
Then you clearly weren't looking. There's Fireball and Firestorm on one side, Winter's Blast and Cone of Cold on the other. Cone of Cold has a wider radius, and this time it's not such overpowered cheese because you have to upgrade cold spells to get them to make things brittle enough for your warriors to smash, if they have the strength to do so.Onyx Oblivion said:
The abilities are all in, but they're streamlined to avoid wasted points. The system is planned for balance and made so that you can either upgrade a spell that you fancy or simply go on to the next part of the tree or to another spell tree entirely.
Give Bethany the heal spell, maybe? She does level up, after all, and so do you if you're a mage.Megacherv said:
I think people are ok with the game being easier, but it is also waaaaaaaaaaaay more simple than the first game. For a sequel, I think everyone was expecting it to be a bit more complex, especially since they got virtually all of the complex stuff right in the first game. The lack of a 'build your own character and have different origin stories' may also be turning people off.
I on the other hand, like what they are trying to do with the story, so I'll give it a rent.
I on the other hand, like what they are trying to do with the story, so I'll give it a rent.
Dude, it IS more complex. What you played was a demo. A crapload of abilities were locked for the demo, as it was supposed to be an introduction.Korne said:
As Knight_47K said on the Gamefaqs boards, an example is that in Origins, there were 56 talents for a rogue (including specializations.) For DA2, there are around 85-90. So what are you even complaining about here?
You can't possible believe that, dude. No proper tactical cam, no friendly fire (except on nm), optional pause and play, no changing armor (except in rare permitted instances), shorter cooldowns to allow spamming of skills and spells, fewer spells and talents (well maybe except rogue, but I need to check that). Come on, even the devs make no pretence that this has moved towards the twitch reflex mode of play (or at least the action genre).WynneL said:
To be honest I don't usually play games on the hardest difficulty unless I want bragging rights (Ikaruga, Ninja Gaiden 2 etc.) but even then it's just for fun. I played DA:O on the highest difficulty without realizing it, I couldn't beat the last boss and I was totally out of potions etc. I had given up on the game for weeks and I decided to go back, I went to go put it from "normal" to "casual" and there it was....I was mad. DA:O wasn't that hard though honestly, I don't remember having trouble or even having a certain strategy other than your basic MMO style party type thing. It was a little daunting after my long break from the game to jump straight to the final boss but it was easy to beat on casual even with half my party dead and hardly any potions. That said I did enjoy Mass Effect 2 more than Mass Effect 1. If they are headed the same direction with this though it will be too generic....man I'm rambling and didn't even realize it. PS: I am downloading the demo now, I haven't played it.
TL;dr: DA:O was just right; if they go the mass effect 2 route I think it might be boring.
TL;dr: DA:O was just right; if they go the mass effect 2 route I think it might be boring.
I hope this doesn't signal the swing from ME1 to ME2 for Dragon Age.
When I started DAO I did get destroyed on normal, but this was primarily because until roughly halfway through the game I refused to spec Morrigan into any healing and I hadn't recruited Wynne. I read on a forum somewhere that healing makes the game tremendously easier, and that's true. Until that point I'd been scavenging together the health poultices and gobbling them every fight.
After learning how to play the game (1 playthrough on Normal) I switched to Hard indefinitely. Hard is about where I feel challenged yet still enjoyable. I beat it once on Nightmare, but Nightmare strikes me as that extra cheesy mode in most fighting games where the opponents just block every super combo you do. Nightmare just has normal mobs, let alone boss mobs, that dodge a ton of your stuff. You have to be pretty heavily specced into whatever weapon type you're using otherwise you might as well just autofire with a staff. That doesn't really constitute difficulty in my eyes. What really needed work was the difficulty curve, ie intro mission and Ostagar - Easy. Middle of game missions - Hard. End of game - easy.
When I started DAO I did get destroyed on normal, but this was primarily because until roughly halfway through the game I refused to spec Morrigan into any healing and I hadn't recruited Wynne. I read on a forum somewhere that healing makes the game tremendously easier, and that's true. Until that point I'd been scavenging together the health poultices and gobbling them every fight.
After learning how to play the game (1 playthrough on Normal) I switched to Hard indefinitely. Hard is about where I feel challenged yet still enjoyable. I beat it once on Nightmare, but Nightmare strikes me as that extra cheesy mode in most fighting games where the opponents just block every super combo you do. Nightmare just has normal mobs, let alone boss mobs, that dodge a ton of your stuff. You have to be pretty heavily specced into whatever weapon type you're using otherwise you might as well just autofire with a staff. That doesn't really constitute difficulty in my eyes. What really needed work was the difficulty curve, ie intro mission and Ostagar - Easy. Middle of game missions - Hard. End of game - easy.
Sadly it seems like I am going to be dusting off a tomstone that says "RIP Bioware" on it before too long. They seem to be dead, or at least dyng, as a serious RPG developer. Simply put there are PLENTY of introductory level RPGs out there for the asking, and it was cool to see a game that was taking this seriously for those wanting something deeper. Sadly it seems "Dragon Age Origins" is speeding things up, and dumbing them down for the casual crowd, and also adjusting the overall difficulty, or at least the names, so as not to stigmatize casual players AS casual players.
I understand where Bioware is coming from here, I just don't much care for it. I think the way they defined "normal mode" for Origins was fine. I don't like the idea of "normal" becoming hard, and normal becoming casual, so casual players can claim to be playing on normal mode (so to speak).
If anything, as a sequel this game should have been becoming deeper, more involved, and perhaps even more difficult in an absolute sense, rather than devolving into yet another introductory level RPG that people can blow through with minimal understanding of stats, game mechanics, or even tactics.
I understand where Bioware is coming from here, I just don't much care for it. I think the way they defined "normal mode" for Origins was fine. I don't like the idea of "normal" becoming hard, and normal becoming casual, so casual players can claim to be playing on normal mode (so to speak).
If anything, as a sequel this game should have been becoming deeper, more involved, and perhaps even more difficult in an absolute sense, rather than devolving into yet another introductory level RPG that people can blow through with minimal understanding of stats, game mechanics, or even tactics.
I wasn't aware the first one was difficult... Played it on Hard the whole time and only times I had trouble were during a couple of boss related fights.
So the overhead camera is removed, armor doesn't show up on your character, the graphics are worse, there are no mod tools and the game is easier and less tactical and it can be played like an action RPG...
And Bioware is still claiming that consoles aren't the core benefactor and causation of these changes.
Lies.
And Bioware is still claiming that consoles aren't the core benefactor and causation of these changes.
Lies.
It's not that DA:O was hard, per se, but it was hard-er than most role playing games these days.
Once I figured out that I should spend some time setting up my tactics slots battles became less insanity inducing.
I loved the DA2 demo. They took DA:O and made it better, while leaving it the same. I just hope they do let you turn on auto-attack so I don't break the attack button on my Xbox controller.
Once I figured out that I should spend some time setting up my tactics slots battles became less insanity inducing.
I loved the DA2 demo. They took DA:O and made it better, while leaving it the same. I just hope they do let you turn on auto-attack so I don't break the attack button on my Xbox controller.
yet another in a long line of disappointments from this franchise. What happened to the bioware that produced the original fallout, Bulders gate and Torment. When will you start making epic games like that again?
After trying Dragon Age 2 demo on my PS3 I can see how it can be considered hard. Granted most of the difficulty came from me being inept with gamepad control scheme, but still it made me wonder, can games like Dragon Age be properly enjoyed on consoles ?
I played Origins on my PC and completed it on hard because that difficulty provided optimal challenge. Still, I haven't played it on consoles so I can't provide my view on the matter.
I played Origins on my PC and completed it on hard because that difficulty provided optimal challenge. Still, I haven't played it on consoles so I can't provide my view on the matter.