Show, don't tell, Dragon Age 2.

[Hyper-space]

Now you are just trolling

real complicated

Bull.crap.

That screen only shows the tactics menu and you know it.

Spoiler

[/spoiler]
What are those three icons beside the unarmed button? THEY NEVER TAKE THE TIME TO TELL YOU ANYTHING. But sure, calling someone a troll is probably the only thing you can fall on in face of an actual debate.
[quote]
Wow funny troll too
[/quote]
"Oh boy, seeing as i have no point or argument to bring forth, ill just call him a troll!"

Tedious =/= depth. This is not something that gives the gameplay more depth or challenge, it only wastes one time with tedious precision. That is not the point of BGII's gameplay, it is a design-flaw.

[quote]
Maybe you arent trolling. You come off as someone who dloaded the game on gog to see what it was cracked up to be, was slapped in the face with actual gameplay and depth and didnt recover.[/quote]
CIV5 has deep gameplay, BGII has deep gameplay to an extent. What brings down the point of BGII's gameplay (that is, depth) is tediousness and unnecessary menu-surfing (such as in the case of memorizing spells). More menus =/= depth, adding 3 more hoops to jump through (in case of item-information or learning new spells) does not make it deeper, it only makes it more tedious. What is the point of having all these factors when you do not explain how they work?. Depth is something that is accomplished by having additional factors that determine the outcome, such as in the case of DA:O. In DA:O (talking about weapons) you had weapon speed, armor penetration, attribute modifier, critical chance and damage. All of these factors made success a task of not rabid button-mashing, but careful consideration into the numbers and stats of your weapon, that is calculation. All of this flowed together smoothly as all of it was self-explanatory and explained to you. There was no excessive menu-surfing and/or tedious gameplay elements (such as the small selection area). BGII tried to have deep gameplay but its plans fell apart due to the aforementioned problems.

[quote]
RTFM
BG 2 has a 260+ page one. Play BG 1 first. The interface is not hard to use and 2nd edition D&D is really not that technical. BG is built from a realtime strategy engine. It gives you a lot of options. If you dont know what they are RTFM. Buy the game on amazon. Dont just dload the demo.[/quote]
The mere suggestion that one needs supplementary material or knowledge of other games to enjoy it shows that they failed. It is the same reason why one judges movies on its own merit, but not on the merit of supplementary material. If you take the time to include a system such as 2nd edition DnD into the game, explain it to those who are not familiar with said system. To forgo any explanation is laziness on the developers part.

Next time, if you have no valid point or argument to bring to the conversation, then stay out.

 

[Wolfram23]

Wow somehow it turned into a Baldur's Gate 2 thread. Nice.

OT: I like DA2. I'm ~22 hours in so not super far. But I feel actually more connected than in DA:O because that game they definitely did a lot of "telling" and it all seemed over-your-head. In DA2 it's a lot more personal with the quests and they all seem to open up a little more story in context.

My only real complaint is the reused locations. But at least they're purty (on PC with Very High details all turned on and HD textures).

 

[Baby Tea]

I never had any trouble with BGII's UI.
What precisely was wrong with it?

EVERYTHING.

For one, there are like 3 toolbars on the screen, each with a buttload of unintelligible icons with no pop-up (such as if you hover the mouse over it) or anything to tell you what it does.

That's not true.
The portraits are on the right. It should be obvious that those are to select those characters and see their health.
The game options are on the right, and the character actions are on the bottom.
Every button has a tool-tip. Either wait more then a second, or press 'tab' while over each button.
If a second is too long, feel free to adjust the tool tip delay option in the options menu.

To access item information you first have to put it into your inventory (no space? better throw stuff out!) then right-click it, then scroll down on to see what the stats are.

As opposed to what, exactly?
Dragon Age (Both of them) has limited inventory space as well. It's meant to show that you can't just be a pack mule and carry every knick-knack and bauble you find on the road. Nearly every RPG I've ever played has this. I fail to see how that's a negative.

Being able to access item information right away would save me a lot of time spent diving through menus.

As opposed to Dragon age where you goto the inventory, goto the category of item (Armor, weapon, trinket, trash, potion, etc), then scroll to the item, THEN press X?

Pressing 'I' and right clicking is worse?

Also, you are so far away from your character and the environment, which means in order to loot a small creature like say, an ifrit (or whatever those flying lightning chimps are named), it will take a careful and EXTREMELY steady hand to loot it (good luck if its stuck behind an wall.

Seriously?
I can't help that you'd only have trouble with this if you just had 18 red bulls.
You just click on it.

Now, on to the priest scroll and mages scroll. What is the point of memorizing spells? now, before i go on any further i like to point out that a system in which you can only have so and so many spells could work, but in this its just fundamentally flawed. What is the penalty for stopping, going through all the menus, memorizing all the spells and then resting? what does all this menu-surfing add to the experience? its not like my character has to meditate and enter his own inner realm and rearrange his memories or anything that would enhance the experience. It doesn't do anything other than give you as much immersion as pressing a button could give you, what purpose does this system have other than make you jump through extra hoops? nothing thats what.

It's a mechanic from AD&D, not from Bioware. They were staying true to the pen and paper game that Baldur's Gate is based on. There is no mana, it's about preparing spells. It's a tactical choice to make, otherwise mages would be beyond over-powered. If you've got guff with that, it's hardly Bioware's Fault. Go complain to Wizards of the Coast around 12+ years ago.

I think it's weird you're bashing the interface of a game that's over 10 years old.
Did you just play it yesterday?

 

[StBishop]

This is pure opinion. Mechanically the click to attack feature was only removed from PC due to accidentally clicking next to enemies lead to movement rather than attacking.

auto attack was supposed to be on consoles too and for good reason. This isnt an action game. As a strategy game DA 2 is mediocre, as an action game its terrible. So switching constantly and pressing a button with every attack and every character is a chore. It makes you want to play it as an action game and its a lousy action game.

I think the problem here is that, for me, an RPG's combat has always been about "My numbers are bigger, this means I win" and DA 2 still has that.

For you it seems, combat should be different, but realistically, DA 2 is neither a strategy game, nor an action game.
It's an RPG with the option to use strategies in combat and an "actiony" feel.

I don't want to make any assumptions, but have you played on the consoles? You don't need to press a button for every attack with every character. If you open the radial menu, give orders and then close it, you only need to press the button with your character (as in the one you're controlling at the time), not all the others as they do auto attack.

 

[rickthetrick]

Ok, so I have an advantage over consolers in the gameplay department because I played it on PC.
It just outright plays better mechanically because it has the auto-attack feature.

Where Dragon Age 2 suffers is nowhere in the gameplay department. There is nothing mechanically wrong with the base of Dragon Age 2.

Dragon Age 2 suffers from a lack of depth.
Dragon Age 2 tells.
Varric's interludes kept filling in gaps, but they're the wrong gaps to fill.
Don't tell me Hawke rose to prominence, show me Hawke did.
Don't tell me tensions rose, show me they did.

And the companions... my god. I just didn't give a shit. None of them were at all important because they lacked depth.
They were great characters, they each had distinct personalities and histories, but none of them were properly explored.
The real reason they lack depth is the dialogue wheel.
I might have had five responses to a companion's query in DA:O, where my response might produce approval, disproval, or nothing at all. I had to base my response according to either their character or my own. I needed to know and understand their personalities, and the dialogue lines were distinct.

In DA 2 I have a 'nice', 'snarky' or 'comedic' response. No points for guessing which one is the right response. The dialogue wheel is much easier to use than ME's, the conversation options are clear, but they're narrow.

DA2's biggest problem is that it lacks the depth that DA:O had. It's combat mechanics were fine, enjoyable in and of themselves, but I don't feel like I'll gain anything from playing through a third time.

DA:O, by comparison, was such a deep world that it was worth multiple playthroughs for each origin itself. Your gender and your backstory affected how the world responded to you as well as your relation to it - Arl Howe, for example, is very different when playing as a human noble than any of the other characters.

Hawke's world is stagnant. The choice/consequence simply doesn't seem to be there.
Like ME:2, you get mail most of the time. If that. Things that seem like they should be big just aren't in the long run.

For example:

Spoiler

surely losing both your mother and brother/sister should have an impact on Hawke. It doesn't. Hawke and the world is precisely the same whether Bethany joins the circle, the wardens or she dies. Sure the dialogue lines are different, but that's all the impact you'll see.

As far as I can see, Dragon Age 2 was dumbed down intellectually, not mechanically.

Third play through? I cant even muster a second. Just not enough variety compared to origins. Oh and I am not talking about the recycled areas. They didn't really bother me as much as they did some people. In fact they remind me of live action role playing to some degree. What bothered me was the ending. I wont spoil it for anyone, but it just seemed that whichever choices I made, the ending reflects them in a sentence or less, while the exact same video plays. I much rather preferred Origins where they broke it down at the end for all your choices.

 

[Ascarus]

Could it be that you are just stuck in the past, or expected DoA2 to be an expansion pack?

No - i suspect that like many people who were disappointed in DA:2 they expected an RPG worthy of Bioware. Plain and simple. And DA2 did not deliver.

 

[KwaggaDan]

Could it be that you are just stuck in the past, or expected DoA2 to be an expansion pack?

No - i suspect that like many people who were disappointed in DA:2 they expected an RPG worthy of Bioware. Plain and simple. And DA2 did not deliver.

I honestly don't understand all this hate. I really enjoyed Dragon Age II, and I'm just about to replay it. It was well written, had tonnes of depth and the supporting cast is some of the best I could ever remember. It actually felt like I was learning more about them, instead of just grinding XP in their companion quests...

Maybe it wasn't Baldur's Gate, but Dragon Age is a damn fine game, in my opinion.

 

[ldwater]

I guess DA2 is like Marmite; people either love it or hate it!

Personally I thought it was OK but not epic uber great as everyone was saying:

- Only 1 tank character? So if you don't play the tank yourself then your stuck with Avaline the WHOLE game. You don't have to have a tank but any bosses you encounter just run through anyone else like they were paper.

- As said a million times over the areas are copy pasted so often it didn't feel like an epic quest across interesting lands and deadly enemies; it felt like you were stuck, imprisoned in Kirkwall never to leave again.

- You get quests to go to a companions 'home base' to talk to them, but you can't talk to them while they are in your party, standing right next to you?? WTF?

- I prefer to play the game as a single character, not flick between each one (its an RPG not some sims game) but for the tough fights you have to because the AI is really thick.

- Some boss fights didn't feel epic and amazing because they would always agro my healer and I would have to take control of the healer and literally circle kite the boss till everyone could catch up.

- Can't change your team without having to run all the way back to a 'regroup' point, which if your in the middle of a quest and find you picked the wrong guys you end up having to run out to change your team.

I played it all the way through and enjoyed it but it did annoy me because of those faults.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Are people seriously defending the Infinity Engine? Defend the games, certainly, but not the engine. Critics hated that engine. Aside from the lovely individually detailed backdrops it was a tedious, fussy mess of an engine that we're well rid of.

 

[Kaanyr Vhok]

I think the problem here is that, for me, an RPG's combat has always been about "My numbers are bigger, this means I win" and DA 2 still has that.

For you it seems, combat should be different, but realistically, DA 2 is neither a strategy game, nor an action game.
It's an RPG with the option to use strategies in combat and an "actiony" feel.

My issue is that by being neither its not much of anything. The action is just for show and the strategy is lacking.

I don't want to make any assumptions, but have you played on the consoles? You don't need to press a button for every attack with every character. If you open the radial menu, give orders and then close it, you only need to press the button with your character (as in the one you're controlling at the time), not all the others as they do auto attack.

I played the demo on the 360. You cant survey and anticipate because whoever you are controlling requires constant input and that constant input offers nothing. Neither does the personal cam. Its style over substance. If it had real action combat then it might make sense to force you to fight but all you are doing is issuing an order in the same way you would in a strategy game.

That screen only shows the tactics menu and you know it.
What are those three icons beside the unarmed button? THEY NEVER TAKE THE TIME TO TELL YOU ANYTHING. But sure, calling someone a troll is probably the only thing you can fall on in face of an actual debate.

That screen is the actual interface. I have the manual right here on my desk. 263 pages. Page 17 Main Interface. Explains everything and its easy to select. You can select the journal the spell list, the character sheet, the inventory, the map, a character and other stuff just by moving the mouse to the button. Thats easier and more accessible than something like Fable or Dragon Age.

"Oh boy, seeing as i have no point or argument to bring forth, ill just call him a troll!"

You have a manual that tells you what it does, you hold the mouse over and it tells you, you have more options and choices in a single mouse click than the vast majority of games that force you to press start and scroll and scroll so yes its does seem like you are not being serious ie tttttrollin

Tedious =/= depth. This is not something that gives the gameplay more depth or challenge, it only wastes one time with tedious precision. That is not the point of BGII's gameplay, it is a design-flaw.

What is tedious? Since BG 2 Bioware has removed two party members, removed the ability to attack or accidently attack civies, removed individual inventories, shrunk areass, redced exporation, reduced the amount of NPCs in areas, made it so party members cant die, removed the ability to solo effectively (cant do that with level scaling), removed Day/Night cycles, removed party customization with custom portraits and sounds, removed the ability to steal and bash chest, derped ranged weapons, and removed stealth based gorilla tactics. None of that stuff was tedious.

CIV5 has deep gameplay, BGII has deep gameplay to an extent. What brings down the point of BGII's gameplay (that is, depth) is tediousness and unnecessary menu-surfing (such as in the case of memorizing spells). More menus =/= depth, adding 3 more hoops to jump through (in case of item-information or learning new spells) does not make it deeper, it only makes it more tedious. What is the point of having all these factors when you do not explain how they work?.

Only in magic are there more menus. Really not even with magic. Selecting spells in a book for wizards and clerics (sorcerers dont have to memorize) is a similar process to selecting spells in any other game.

Depth is something that is accomplished by having additional factors that determine the outcome, such as in the case of DA:O. In DA:O (talking about weapons) you had weapon speed, armor penetration, attribute modifier, critical chance and damage. All of these factors made success a task of not rabid button-mashing, but careful consideration into the numbers and stats of your weapon, that is calculation. All of this flowed together smoothly as all of it was self-explanatory and explained to you. There was no excessive menu-surfing and/or tedious gameplay elements (such as the small selection area). BGII tried to have deep gameplay but its plans fell apart due to the aforementioned problems.

You didnt name anything that was a problem. Also in BG weapon speed matters more. If you are really skilled with ranged weapons you can kill someone with darts in BG. Check this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9zJrKPMXjY
Proficency, and weapon speed took the best fighter down with darts.
Ranged weapons are just tacked onto Origins. For the most part they are damn near usless. Ranged combat added a layer of depth to BG; it was far more functional and easy to use. In BG you keep a ranged weapon equiped on every character. All you have to do to have three characters attack one target is make a mouse box over them. You can do the same with the other three or splice it up depending on who you want shooting who. You can have all of them gang up on one target. You could do that faster in BG with six part member than you could it with two in Dragon Age. Thats why I called you a troll. In two seconds you can have six attack one.

The mere suggestion that one needs supplementary material or knowledge of other games to enjoy it shows that they failed. It is the same reason why one judges movies on its own merit, but not on the merit of supplementary material. If you take the time to include a system such as 2nd edition DnD into the game, explain it to those who are not familiar with said system. To forgo any explanation is laziness on the developers part.

Next time, if you have no valid point or argument to bring to the conversation, then stay out.

Good lord its in the manual. Do you know what RTFM stands for? Page 66. AD&D Rules: An Introduction. You would have to learn any RPG system. Its the same in Dragon Age. If you dont read it you wont know. Also I'm not a huge fan of D&D but DA's stat system is a joke. I could come up with something better than that sitting on the toilet short on paper.

 

[Kaanyr Vhok]

Are people seriously defending the Infinity Engine? Defend the games, certainly, but not the engine. Critics hated that engine. Aside from the lovely individually detailed backdrops it was a tedious, fussy mess of an engine that we're well rid of.

The only thing it got bashed for was pathfinding and its inability to calculate the amount of turns a hasted 20th level monk could use.. oh and flight too. But what has topped it. NWN?? We have smaller areas, and still no flight?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The only it really got bashed for was pathfinding and its inability to calculate the amount of turns a hasted 20th level monk could use.. oh and flight too. But what has topped it. NWN?? We have smaller areas, and still no flight?

Pathfinding was the big one, but it was also a 2D engine with extremely poor maximum resolution.

Look, don't get me wrong. Planescape, Baldur's Gate...these are classic games. I love those games. But the engine wasn't very good. The NWN engine was kind of shit too, while we're on the topic. More functional, but it lost a ton of personality. Bioware has never done game mechanics well.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Ranged weapons are just tacked onto Origins. For the most part they are damn near usless.

I don't have time to properly reply here, but done right ranged combat could be extremely overpowered in Origins. I'll admit it was not well balanced and the mechanical 'crunch' side of it was not very intuitive, but then many things in Origins were not well balanced. DA2 has actually corrected the vast majority of them.

A cunning based bard archer or a spirit warrior archer in awakening could do horrible, horrible damage once you learned how to exploit the mechanics though, the former through ridiculous armour penetration and critical chance, the latter through dealing spirit damage, and both through judicious application of arrow of slaying.

 

[Kaanyr Vhok]

I don't have time to properly reply here, but done right ranged combat could be extremely overpowered in Origins. I'll admit it was not well balanced and the mechanical 'crunch' side of it was not very intuitive, but then many things in Origins were not well balanced. DA2 has actually corrected the vast majority of them.

A cunning based bard archer or a spirit warrior archer in awakening could do horrible, horrible damage once you learned how to exploit the mechanics though, the former through ridiculous armour penetration and critical chance, the latter through dealing spirit damage, and both through judicious application of arrow of slaying.

I dont doubt it. I stopped playing at about the halfway point. Figure if you branch it, it could serve a purpose. Thats still broken if it takes so long. I remember kiting a warrior in the Dwarf Origin for like 15 minutes shooting the guy repeatedly at close range.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I dont doubt it. I stopped playing at about the halfway point. Figure if you branch it, it could serve a purpose. Thats still broken if it takes so long. I remember kiting a warrior in the Dwarf Origin for like 15 minutes shooting the guy repeatedly at close range.

I'd presume you were playing rogue.

Here's the thing, you can set your bow in the loadout 2 slot and switch between ranged and melee combat with a single key (on the PC at least), and until later on when you have multiple sustained abilities with cooldowns to worry about it's genuinely pretty effective. For this reason, it's very easy to rely on daggers when caught in melee until the point when your archery skills can stand on their own (not that you even needed to except on higher difficulties, the early sections are pretty easy for any character).

It's even kind of fun. Wait for someone to attack you, stun them with dirty fighting, duck behind and knife them in the back a few times then switch back to your bow and pinning shot them in place while you move to a better firing position and wait for dirty fighting to cool down so you can do it again. Heck, even with the first tier 'rapid shot' talent you could do respectable damage at range even from the very beginning.

If you were a warrior, you had even less excuse since you started with shield bash and could very much hold your own in melee combat throughout the early encounters.

Is that really less complicated and tactical than 'running away with speed boots'. Melee archery isn't really meant to be viable for new characters in any system. The only difference with Origins is that it's worth having a backup melee weapon until you have better equipment and more talents.

 

[Kaanyr Vhok]

^^ Yep I was a rogue. Pure archery works well enough in some games. It was great in the infinity engine. I could lay a Cyclops down in IWD with six armed rogues. Would take less than a minute. I understood how to use the rogues skills in DA:O. I got through the fade with stealth and back stabs. It started to feel canned. I prefer a game that lets me interject reason into the strategy. As long as arrows behave like tooth picks there is no reason. I played Origins on hard and rapid shot was still about as lethal as a punch in the face.