Dragon Age: Origins isn't doing it for me. Should I keep going?

[DoPo]

The game is decent but nowhere near mandatory to play. It's very...BioWare. It's so BioWare that it exemplifies most of their games. Similar characters, similar plot progression and so on. It happens to be one of the best BioWare games, in my opinion but it's still quite generic.

I can't think of a single location or quest or something that I can point out and say "You HAVE to experience this in your life". Honestly, the best thing about the game is the "morality system" or lack thereof. It makes quite a lot of sense - your choices influence your companions, so killing somebody might make one companion dislike you, while another may instead encourage you depending on their views.

Other than that, I don't think the game has a lot to offer in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'm going to give it one more try. I just don't understand this thing about constantly pausing the game. Where's the game flow in that? If I need to kill the pace of the combat constantly to be able to make strategic decisions, why is it in real time to begin with? Is this one of those archaic design elements that has retro appeal? At least in X-Com or Darkest Dungeon I can take my time, weigh my options and focus on a single element at a time.

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game. I played it on ps3 which meant you had to hold down the trigger to pause but even on ps3 it had a setting where you would just tap the trigger and then tap again to unpause cause they knew how much pausing you needed to do.


If anything, one of the biggest complaints with the sequel was that it made the game more real-time combat-wise. We actually like all that tactical pausing and the consideration of each specific move. As far as the auto-actions go, I'd only use some really basic ones such as when someone should use a potion or who to start auto-attacking (usually whoever the char I walked around with would attack) and how close/far from enemies should the position themselves, then I'd simply jump from char to char and give specific commands to the entire party manually.

Use more magic and more crowd control effects. The game feels more tactical that way.

I had a horrible time on my Rogue. Stealth and backstabbing was horrible to set up and didn't pay off particularly. I hear there are some utterly broken combinations on the rogue but I never got a feel for it.

Mages however - throwing a massive AOE Fireball into a room which knocks everybody in it on their ass flat - then rushing in to pick off the ones closest and then freezing the ones that get back up with a cone of frost... that feels more tactical and rewarding. Even if you didn't play a mage, there's still Morrigan and Wr..w.. the old woman.

I enjoyed setting up knockdown, freeze and shatter combinations. Felt good.

You definitely need to pause a whole lot.

But you might as well stop here - things get less tactical with DA2 and DA:I(especially DA:I).

Rogue seemed underwhelming but then I made this combo where I became a ranger sub-class and then used my pets as fuel for my blood mages. They didn't have any reason to hold back out of fear of killing the pets so it was basically infinite mana mode, pretty damn broken indeed XD.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I loved the game, but it took me a good 10-15 hours to get properly in to it.

Combat wise try playing as either a mage or dul-weild rogue, it's a lot more interesting. That said, combat doesn't really open up until about 20-25 hours in anyway.

Also, I found Alistair & Morrigan both brilliant characters full of good banter. Morrigan's story is very interesting & she shows conflicts with her cuntyness later in the game (said cuntyness is there really to set it up), but her inherit upbringing never leaves her either.

I'd say try those other classes, and play until you complete at least a couple of the "choice" quests. That way you'll experience the more exciting elements of combat, and will have more companions to choose from to flesh the experience out.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game.

Well it does a shit job of it, I'll tell you that much. As real-time combat it's far too clunky, slow-paced (like pulling the string for 5 seconds to let out a single Crippling Shot) and chance-based to be engaging, and as turn-based combat it's too chaotic. What really rustles my jimmies is how the default camera angle is in the third person, sending a message that this game is meant to be played with the main player character despite the mechanics being anything but that, and the classics it's copying were isometric.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game.

Well it does a shit job of it, I'll tell you that much. As real-time combat it's far too clunky, slow-paced (like pulling the string for 5 seconds to let out a single Crippling Shot) and chance-based to be engaging, and as turn-based combat it's too chaotic. What really rustles my jimmies is how the default camera angle is in the third person, sending a message that this game is meant to be played with the main player character despite the mechanics being anything but that, and the classics it's copying were isometric.

I could swear the PC camera turned into an isometric type angle when pausing. Ps3 was like that though, yeah, but it wasn't particularly chaotic as long as you paused a lot and took your time analyzing the situation. It's kinda like Vats in FO3, you pause, figure out where everyone is, hatch a plan, then unpause and do stuff.


But yeah, the game isn't meant to be real time, so of course it'd be terrible at being real time.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game.

Well it does a shit job of it, I'll tell you that much. As real-time combat it's far too clunky, slow-paced (like pulling the string for 5 seconds to let out a single Crippling Shot) and chance-based to be engaging, and as turn-based combat it's too chaotic. What really rustles my jimmies is how the default camera angle is in the third person, sending a message that this game is meant to be played with the main player character despite the mechanics being anything but that, and the classics it's copying were isometric.

I could swear the PC camera turned into an isometric type angle when pausing. Ps3 was like that though, yeah, but it wasn't particularly chaotic as long as you paused a lot and took your time analyzing the situation. It's kinda like Vats in FO3, you pause, figure out where everyone is, hatch a plan, then unpause and do stuff.


But yeah, the game isn't meant to be real time, so of course it'd be terrible at being real time.

That is because its meant to be Pause and Play.

You pause the game to lay out your startegize and give commands to your party members than unpause to see the results and you can still do actions while the game is not paused.

This is a gameplay style that Total War games, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights are known for.

They were never meant to be truely real time because the combat itself is not true real time like most action games.

 

[Kerg3927]

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game.

Well it does a shit job of it, I'll tell you that much. As real-time combat it's far too clunky, slow-paced (like pulling the string for 5 seconds to let out a single Crippling Shot) and chance-based to be engaging, and as turn-based combat it's too chaotic. What really rustles my jimmies is how the default camera angle is in the third person, sending a message that this game is meant to be played with the main player character despite the mechanics being anything but that, and the classics it's copying were isometric.

I could swear the PC camera turned into an isometric type angle when pausing. Ps3 was like that though, yeah, but it wasn't particularly chaotic as long as you paused a lot and took your time analyzing the situation. It's kinda like Vats in FO3, you pause, figure out where everyone is, hatch a plan, then unpause and do stuff.


But yeah, the game isn't meant to be real time, so of course it'd be terrible at being real time.

That is because its meant to be Pause and Play.

You pause the game to lay out your startegize and give commands to your party members than unpause to see the results and you can still do actions while the game is not paused.

This is a gameplay style that Total War games, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights are known for.

They were never meant to be truely real time because the combat itself is not true real time like most action games.

Yep, some people who mostly play action games tend to think about it backward. It's intended to make turn-based tactical gaming more actiony. Not make action gaming more tactical. The action part of it is secondary. Someone playing it for the action should probably play something else.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

See, it's not real time. It just wears that veneer to fool turn-based-averse gamers into getting it. The game, especially on pc, really is intended to be played as a turn based game.

Well it does a shit job of it, I'll tell you that much. As real-time combat it's far too clunky, slow-paced (like pulling the string for 5 seconds to let out a single Crippling Shot) and chance-based to be engaging, and as turn-based combat it's too chaotic. What really rustles my jimmies is how the default camera angle is in the third person, sending a message that this game is meant to be played with the main player character despite the mechanics being anything but that, and the classics it's copying were isometric.

I could swear the PC camera turned into an isometric type angle when pausing. Ps3 was like that though, yeah, but it wasn't particularly chaotic as long as you paused a lot and took your time analyzing the situation. It's kinda like Vats in FO3, you pause, figure out where everyone is, hatch a plan, then unpause and do stuff.


But yeah, the game isn't meant to be real time, so of course it'd be terrible at being real time.

That is because its meant to be Pause and Play.

You pause the game to lay out your startegize and give commands to your party members than unpause to see the results and you can still do actions while the game is not paused.

This is a gameplay style that Total War games, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights are known for.

They were never meant to be truely real time because the combat itself is not true real time like most action games.

Yep, some people who mostly play action games tend to think about it backward. It's intended to make turn-based tactical gaming more actiony. Not make action gaming more tactical. The action part of it is secondary. Someone playing it for the action should probably play something else.

Exactly. RTwP is really a more fluid version of turn based combat where you get to pause and have a turn as often as you want to (or as often as your cool downs allow).

 

[Jonbodhi]

It also took me a very long time to understand the combat system. So long, in fact, that I had the game on 'easy' for 3/4s of its length, and I didn't really 'get' the tactics system until halfway through FDA2. Once I understood it, had came to love it fiercely, only to see it mostly stripped out of DA:I. (Sigh!)

And the graphics! I admit I'm a bit of a graphics whore! But, come on! Those graphics were awful, even for the time.

I loved being able to play as any character. I loved the dialogue between them all. I loved the varied openings and branching solutions to each quest.

I hate that improved graphics and combat come at the cost of scaled-back ambition and an unnecessary open world in DA: I.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

It also took me a very long time to understand the combat system. So long, in fact, that I had the game on 'easy' for 3/4s of its length, and I didn't really 'get' the tactics system until halfway through FDA2. Once I understood it, had came to love it fiercely, only to see it mostly stripped out of DA:I. (Sigh!)

And the graphics! I admit I'm a bit of a graphics whore! But, come on! Those graphics were awful, even for the time.

I loved being able to play as any character. I loved the dialogue between them all. I loved the varied openings and branching solutions to each quest.

I hate that improved graphics and combat come at the cost of scaled-back ambition and an unnecessary open world in DA: I.

Totally agree about the decline of the series gameplay since Origins. Going from a PC focus to a console focus is also a part of that. Origins is very much designed around m&k controls, whereas DAI clearly designed for controller first with m&k as an afterthought (hell, barely an afterthought; they had to patch in basic m&k functionality).

Its also worth nothing that the reason that DAO looks as bad as it does is that it had a six year dev cycle, so part of it were old even when the game came out. Its also a Bioware game, technical brilliance has never been their forte.

 

[Kerg3927]

Its also worth nothing that the reason that DAO looks as bad as it does is that it had a six year dev cycle, so part of it were old even when the game came out. Its also a Bioware game, technical brilliance has never been their forte.

The funny thing is that the worst Bioware games have the best graphics. DAI was gorgeous, and I haven't played it yet, but by all accounts MEA has beautiful worlds and landscapes. But as graphics improved, everything else about their games went to sh*t.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Its also worth nothing that the reason that DAO looks as bad as it does is that it had a six year dev cycle, so part of it were old even when the game came out. Its also a Bioware game, technical brilliance has never been their forte.

The funny thing is that the worst Bioware games have the best graphics. DAI was gorgeous, and I haven't played it yet, but by all accounts MEA has beautiful worlds and landscapes. But as graphics improved, everything else about their games went to sh*t.

Bioware seem to have really struggled to adapt to Frostbite, I suspect in no small part due to the fact that its an engine designed primarily for shooters. I know the DA devs said they had to do a lot of work to modify Frostbite so that it would do basic RPG things like use stat based combat, and animate quadrupedal creatures, as DICE had simply never bothered to program any of these sorts of features into the engine. I think I read somewhere that they spent the first year of DAI's development just bringing Frostbite to a point where it could do the things they needed it to do. Frostbite is also a notoriously difficult engine to work with; most of the devs had little to no experience working with it going into DAI's development and its been admitted that they faced a steep learning curve with using it. Clearly the decision to use Frostbite is one that has been mandated from EA head office and although Mark Darrah (DA Lead Dev) claims it was a choice to use it, I think he is towing the company line.

 

[AD-Stu]

If you've defended Redcliffe and still aren't having fun then I'd say quit now. It doesn't get any better. Well, some of the characters get alright, but the gameplay never improves.

Yeah, ^ this would be my advice as well.

Stuff happens, story progresses, yadda yadda yadda, but if you're already finding it a boring grind then that's not going to change.

 

[brucethemoose]

I bounced off Origins too. Maybe I'm just a spoiled brat, but yeah, the combat bored me to tears... And I didn't mind the similar style in KOTOR or KOTOR II.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I'm not enamored with Dragon Age Origins either. The world is pretty generic, the characters seems pretty uninteresting and the combat is dull. Somewhat weird, since I'm an avid p&p D&D player and enjoyed several classic crpg's like Baldur's Gate and Divine Divinity.

I gave up on DA:O about 4-5 hours in. It might get better later, but sorry, I'm no linger willing to put in that much time for a maybe.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm kind of surprised. For a while I thought I was a weirdo for not really getting into DA:O. I've tried the game 3 times, each as a different character and always getting a bit further. However, despite having 2 friends who bring the game up frequently, I can't muster the enthusiasm to reinstall the game, because there's always another game(even in the same genre) that interests me more at any given moment. Last year it was the Witcher series, and intermittely I'm playing through the Souls series to scratch my Fantasy/RPG itch. That's not even going into the fact I have the Divinity series sitting in my GOG library I haven't even touched.

The fact it feels like generic Fantasy doesn't help much either. I've played Balders Gate(back in the day) but I wasn't enamored with it. I heard the sequel was better though on many fronts.

 

[jklinders]

If you aren't enjoying it by Redcliff then odds are good you won't at all. The game has aged terribly and everything about party management is pretty stiff by modern standards. All three class types are perfectly viable but if you are looking into simply skating through the game to get a completion you could simply abuse Bloodmage. Overall consensus is that is easily the most OP and broken class you can get.

I always like Bioware games more for the party interaction than the gameplay (Mass Effect being a bit of an exception) but if that is not enough to keep you going then my opinion is, your time is better spent.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Beat the game OP, and the expansion and DLC content, don't listen to all these negative nancies.

Dragon Age Origins is great. I wasted hours on this game.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Tried again. Went to the keep in Redcliffe. Retried the combat with constant pausing. On easy it was basically pointless. Turned the difficulty to normal, couldn't get the hang of it and kept dying. Not putting myself through any more of this for now. This game simply leans too much on the elements I dislike.

I'm not sorry. This system of combining precise tactics, micromanagement of abilities and character positioning with preset AI behaviors and real time is terrible. Allies constantly get in the way or can't fit through a door frame. The AI burns through all my health potions so fast I barely have time to notice it. And yes, I fucking know I can adjust that setting, but all I can craft at the moment is Lesser Health Poultices (why not just call them potions?), and no matter what threshold I set for their usage, they drain just as quickly. I went to the werewolf place with over 70 of the damn things, and still was emptied out by the end. By the time I recognize what enemies I should put debuffs to things like movement speed on the enemy is already close enough to take an up close look at my nostril hairs. And don't even mention trying to keep an eye on what abilities enemies are using. I can't for the life of me see what benefit this system has over a turn-based one. Hell, even Ni No Kuni's combat was more manageable since you weren't meant to be constantly dictating the other members' every move.

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to. It showed the icon on his character panel, but the enemies seemed to target the other just as much as him. My player character has exactly 1 ability to use in melee, and guess what he does as soon as I relinquish control of him? Runs into melee of course, since that's what an archer's supposed to do.

So basically the only character with any kind of thought to put into combat is Morrigan. Actually too much thought, since she has no less than 12 different spells to use, and I still can't tell which ones are useful or not. Is Spider Form in any way useful? Should I open combat with debuffs to damage resist, movement speed or defense? Is using Frost Weapons worth using over a damage spell? Why in the bloody buggerfuck does the game force me to add yet another spell with every new level, when I barely know which starting spells are useful?

Party members whose movement, I remind you, I have no control over being able to trigger traps outside of combat is something someone should have their dick chopped off for.

I remember the game's writing catching my attention when I initially started playing this a couple of years ago. At the time I was surprised at how engaging the writing of a typical end of the world fantasy plot Bioware had managed to make. But now it just seems terribly ordinary and bland with absolutely zero surprises or twists to it. Thanks a lot, Witcher 3.

And let's face it: the game is an absolute eyesore visuals wise. Even after installing multiple texture and character model mods I'm still taken out of the experience by the shitty tree textures, poor draw distance, barren locations and stiff character animation.

Darkest Dungeon, my old friend
I've come to play with you again
Because a vision of mods came creeping
Caught my eye while I was browsing
And the vision of a better balanced game
Still remains

 

[DoPo]

Is Spider Form in any way useful?

No, as far as I can tell, shapeshifting is pretty much pointless.

Should I open combat with debuffs to damage resist, movement speed or defense?

Depends a bit on what you're facing. Sometimes nuking an enemy to kill them before they act is beneficial, other times you cannot do that, so you may as well buff or debuff. There isn't really one true answer here. If you are facing poweful opponents, you may as well try to get some out of combat - a force cage or some sort of sleep can do it, so you just focus on their buddies first. Other times, you may as well just buff your guys, so you try to get through the enemies either quicker or just to mitigate the incoming damage. It also depends on how exactly you prefer to play.

Is using Frost Weapons worth using over a damage spell?

If I remember correctly, you could activate that before combat, so you don't have to waste time inside of it. But overall, it's not that amazing, unless you heavily depend on only weapons to do the damage. I think I did use that spell, but just because I could, not because I needed to.

Why in the bloody buggerfuck does the game force me to add yet another spell with every new level, when I barely know which starting spells are useful?

So you can get to the good stuff - force cage shuts an enemy down, nightmare (or whatever it was called) can do the same, the thing that increases spell power combos very nicely with some of the other spells, the nullification glyph completely shuts down enemy casters, etc.

I remember the game's writing catching my attention when I initially started playing this a couple of years ago. At the time I was surprised at how engaging the writing of a typical end of the world fantasy plot Bioware had managed to make. But now it just seems terribly ordinary and bland with absolutely zero surprises or twists to it. Thanks a lot, Witcher 3.

I'm going to let you in on a secret - Dragon Age: Origins was always ordinary. Sure, BioWare did put a lot of polish, but the game is nothing but average in terms of themes and indeas. It doesn't bring anything rally new to the table, but it just brings out all the old stuff and makes them shinier.