So I just tried Dragon Age 2...

[ImmortalDrifter]

Congrats you managed to make a thread that consists only of you whining. This isn't your blog, please get lost.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

The only problems I've had with the game, is that it likes to currupt my save files now and then.

Other than that I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Though the level designs (or lack there of) are dissapointing.

EDIT:

I love the game, but (I'm not sure if it's the AI or whatnot) there seems to be a point after the deep roads where the difficulty curve is like running into a brick wall. Normal enemies are fine, but every boss battle is frustrating and needs to be repeated. Maybe I just suck, but has anyone else noticed this?

No it's not just you. Have you ever tried to fight the Arishok as a rogue? I'm not too proud to admit I had to turn the difficulty down for a few of the main bosses.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Yeah, as pretty much everyone has said, you're either doing something wrong or your game is broken in a way no one else has experienced prior to you. Maybe it's because you borrowed a PC copy of the game? *shrug*

The only real issue I have with the AI is that they are terrible at staying away from enemies, no matter which movement option you have them set on. Of course, in this case you can always just take control and move them yourself.

Abilities work great other than the fact that you're still relying on AI to handle things like cooldown management. And honestly, I'm really not expecting an AI to be monitoring the rate of HP loss in my entire party and be able to cast healing spells according based on who needs it most in the specific situation I'm in, how long the cooldown time will be, what to do if two people need to be healed at the same time, etc. Worst comes to worst, set everyone to use a heal pot on themself if their HP gets to below 25%. That way if the healer doesn't catch it in time, they'll still be able to save themselves.

 

[Benn_Walden]

I am a warrior playing through and i am kick arse enough not to have to be healed by a mage (yay for upgrading constitution) so i set his tactics to never heal me and focus on the other ones. Who, as it happens, are awesome and do quite a bit. Are you sure you dont have it on the "you're on your own for this one" difficulty setting?

 

[Wutaiflea]

As far as I can tell this game is nearly unplayable.

Aside from the terrible control interface, poor camera angles(you have to rotate it manually?), at least five year outdated graphics(which consume vast reserves of processing and ram power) all this while running on the highest settings. Aside from all that. The thing that makes this game nearly unplayable, is the ai.

I literally have not been able to progress past the first 'real' engagement as a warrior, terrible gameplay aside, because my ally ai which I need to rely upon, is so FREAKING BAD that they stand there looking at me like an idiot.

My dedicated mage-through both abilities and tactics, stares at me, refusing to heal me while I die; despite having a fully bar of mana, and cooldown for health casts.

And what is with most of the critic reviews? Baseline of an 8.0 it seems, with a user average of universally below 5.0?

Glad I borrowed the game, too bad too, as it actually looked pretty good...from a distance.

I agree with you that the graphics on the characters, particularly their faces, seemed poor- especially compared to the original DA and to the Mass Effect games. I don't think this is a common complaint though- my husband said he couldn't spot the difference.

I also agree that default tactics settings for just about all characters is downright fucking useless, but since you can change it, it didn't bother me.

I've already said elsewhere though that the gameplay didn't bother me as much as the story and characters did, but I will admit, it did seem harder than the original.

 

[Alien Mole]

To be honest, the only problem I've had with the AI (as long as I keep my tactics properly configured) is that it doesn't recognise when friendly fire might be an issue. Fenris scything into melee is the number one cause of death for both my roguehawke and Isabella. (If anyone knows a mod/tactic setup that will make enemies recognise when friendly fire is a risk, please do share.)

Apart from that my team does fine on Nightmare (slightly modded to make assassins less unstoppable killing machines because I'm going for Unstoppable) - I generally just stick to using my rogue for aggro management and occasionally need to ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL to do some precise maneuvering.

 

[Hawgh]

Dishonest?

I've literally been unable to progress past the first serious engagement because of the terrible gameplay and ai, how is that dishonest?

*snickers*

Oh this brings back memories... the dreaded Ogre in Origins, up in the b(e)acon tower.

That bossfight, and the fighting of the invincible hordes of undead in Lothering (most people are bound to go there first- so it's quite early in the game) were just dick moves to pull on the unsuspecting noob. In Lothering I had to swallow my pride and change dificulty to easy and still I had to cower with the knights on the hill as my puny healer-mage used them as shields. I suspect being a rogue on my 2nd character isn't going to make it much easier- I only know that it won't be my first location to go to.

As I said, though, I was a noob then and I will probably fare a lot better the second time around.

Those *snip for brevity*-ing undeads in Lothering. I may actually have been traumatised by them. The worst thing was that the first part with the knights often bugged and only had a few undeads at a time, not to mention the trained knights in plate armor and the burning oil. Then, just when you started to feel a slight optimism that the night might not end in brutal death, you went down to the village....and got slapped around for a few hours because your characters weren't optimised up the wazoo, until you finally switched to easy and brutally nitpicked your way through the fight, only healing those in direst need, ignoring everything but the weakest undead. I only beat the ogre the first time, because I ran around in circles, slowly exploiting it down.

On topic: OP is full of it.

 

[automatron]

poor camera angles(you have to rotate it manually?)

As opposed to what, it spinning in circles?

From what you've said about A.I, you just have a glitchy version/ are doing something terribly wrong.
Maybe just wait for a patch, or play as the other characters. There isn't a problem with tactics if you control them directly

 

[Catchy Slogan]

*snip*

And what about that rock... spirit... thing in the deep roads? Random super moves for no reason, and they can hit me from the other side of the map completely ignoring all the obstacles in the way. I know I'm only a pretty average player, but come on! That was ridiculous! "Easier than Origins" my arse...

 

[harvz]

-uhh, theres tactics...
-the problem with the hit box being small is easily solved, hold shift and it literally tells you where the hit box is.
-the graphics on pc are fairly good, though the particles could use a little optimization/customization as they lag my 5700 radeon.
-camera is pretty standard for most RPG's
-AI is decent, provided you have the patience to take 30 seconds to set tactics.

i would say your playing on a xbox, except your whining includes the hitbox problem, maybe you find comfort complaining about a game which for many people, is pleasurable.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

No offense people, but let me point out the obvious...

Has noone noticed that the OP hasn't responded except for once?
Its obvious this was only an attempt at stirring up the bee hive. His complaints are shallow, with almost no validity to back them up. Heck, his opening comment wasn't even a question or meant for discussion. It was a statement about how he doesn't like the game. All he wanted was an audience.

Sorry, someone call an exterminator... looks like you got a bad case of the trolls.

 

[CreepyStalker]

Hahaha, why is anyone really replying to this? This has been on other websites almost word for word and has been removed as its just for the reaction, everyone who has replied knows that DA2 is not only playable but is also fun (which is the most important thing for a game to be). It does have its faults but is completely deserving of its "good" or "great" reviews and even some of the people agreeing with some of the points he makes are mentioning there 3rd playthrough (if its good enough that you want to play it more than once it cant be that bad right?). And you've got to think, why would you post on a popular gaming website "hey this games sucks" if you weren't looking for a reaction.

 

[etherlance]

I'm pretty much over half way through the game and I've never run into those problems.

I've only lost the game while fighting the Deep Roads boss but soon even he was beaten and I'm still using the pre-set tactics.

On another note, this really isn't a thread, its a page you made so we could all hear you ***** about a game you don't like.
There is no real discussion value here so maybe next time if you could keep a supply of Anti-troll suppressant close at hand your next thread attempt won't go as badly as this one.

 

[mechanixis]

Everyone who harps about this game being Ruined Forever completely neglects to mention the story. It's honestly the most intricate and well-orchestrated narrative Bioware's ever made, and all anyone talks about is how awful it is that you can't change your party's shoes anymore.

Not that I don't miss the shoe-changing, to be honest, but I feel like it's more than made up for in the storytelling department.

 

[babinro]

The first real ogre battle in the game is amongst the games most challenging battles on higher difficulties. I find I had to retry it about 4 times on hard playing as a mage (only once as a warrior). This was despite using my own manual tactics and controlling most party members manually.

I can see why you'd have problems here and I simply recommend in the case of the OP to drop difficulty down to casual for this battle only...after which time the game does a much better job at introducing you to the combat and the mechanics.

 

[WelshDanny]

Having played the demo I agree with the original poster. On PC the interface is near unworkable and why they've removed the option to zoom out and view the whole battlefield is beyond me.

Bioware say the game is 'more welcoming' not dumbed down. http://tinyurl.com/6fhecft

Well it seems dumbed down to me, they've altered it for it to be more successful on consoles at the expense of the PC. I guess it worked for Bioware and EA as almost 60% of sales have been on Xbox 360. However as a PC gamer (for the record I play other games on consoles) I feel let down.

 

[slightly evil]

I always found Dragonage to be a pain to play. I like role playing games but you need so set up healing/tank/ranged classes and things, which doesn't interest me. It's a shame 'RPG' has become inseparable 'RPG Elements' and some RTS style tactics.
You need to keep switching characters and dealing with things yourself, the AI will get themselves killed.
Just wondering, is there a 'run like hell when health drops below xx%' option?

 

[Kiju]

I don't know why people complain about Dragon Age II. It's a great game in my opinion. There are some flaws, but I have absolutely never played a game that didn't have any flaws.

Camera controls are fine. If you don't like that you have to control them yourself, you obviously haven't played many Strategy-RPGs, or any RPGs at all for that matter... The gameplay itself is perfectly average, nothing spectacular about it, but some of the spells do kinda make me feel like a total bad-ass, while they are admittedly somewhat underwhelming. Seriously, why should throwing a fireball at someone do so little damage, when a smack from a mace or sword does more, and doesn't come with a cooldown?

The only flaws I found in Dragon Age II are thus: It only takes place in Kirkwall and the immediate vicinity around it. The locations are also very linear, with little chosen direction for the player to go along, limiting your strategic choices to what the AI decides to allow you. Traps have thankfully been removed for the player character, as useless as they were...but they are also now almost invisible, even to friendly Rogues who have to be not more than three steps from a trap to detect it, no matter their Cunning and the trap's difficulty rating.

Admittedly, while I like the fact that the only advantage the player character has is his mind, I still find that the enemy's damage resistance and HP compared to that of the player is ridiculous. Enemy mages taking a good two dozen strikes with a sword while I can maybe take four or five before I'm dead, c'mon, gimme a break.

Linear, very little power at the player's disposal, and somewhat silly moments from time to time aside, the game is well made and polished because of the faults in it. Because there was only one city and location in the game, that meant they could make that...then concentrate entirely on the gameplay aspects, the story, and the graphics. These are all good things and bad things at the same time. It needs a bit of tweaking and patching, but all in all...a solid sequel. I feel I paid too much for it, but I would think this game is worth at the most and least, forty dollars.

 

[Pyro Paul]

As far as I can tell this game is nearly unplayable.

Aside from the terrible control interface, poor camera angles(you have to rotate it manually?), at least five year outdated graphics(which consume vast reserves of processing and ram power) all this while running on the highest settings. Aside from all that. The thing that makes this game nearly unplayable, is the ai.

I literally have not been able to progress past the first 'real' engagement as a warrior, terrible gameplay aside, because my ally ai which I need to rely upon, is so FREAKING BAD that they stand there looking at me like an idiot.

My dedicated mage-through both abilities and tactics, stares at me, refusing to heal me while I die; despite having a fully bar of mana, and cooldown for health casts.

And what is with most of the critic reviews? Baseline of an 8.0 it seems, with a user average of universally below 5.0?

Glad I borrowed the game, too bad too, as it actually looked pretty good...from a distance.

I'm not going to lie, on the harder difficulties you really notice the AI's lackluster performance in healing/tanking. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here.

For the rest though.

Camera's fine
Controls are fine
Graphics are fine

This game is by no means unplayable, and it's extremely dishonest to say it is, regardless of how much you dislike the game.

These are legit complaints from the PC side of the game. Dragon Age 2 is a very very poor console port to PC. The controls and Camera are built to be played on a console and use the limited in puts of a controller. when on mouse and key board the camera becomes very sticky and sluggish not being as responcisve as how you would see it on a controller. the controls are very lackluster and restrictive on the keyboard, unlike how you would see on a controller.

the Graphics of the PC version are absolute shit. there is no getting around it and there is no ignoring it. Background Textures are litterally often low resolution, and primary textures are very flat. They are bad and it is noticable. This is so well known that the PC version has a downloadable Add-on which contains 'High Definition Textures' yet these higher resolution textures are by no means any better as you'll still find pixilation in background textures and a lot of flatness.

quiet litterally, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has better graphics and details inspite of being on a near decade old engine.

also, because of the way the dragon age 2 engine processes particals and effects, it chews up your hardware for absolutely no reason... it is kinda astonishing to have the game lag on a hex-core computer, but it does.


these are all known honost to God issues which is why the game has recieved such poor ratings from the community.

 

[Projekt Spartan]

I liked Dragon Age II. Better then I liked Origins, even. I played the first one on PC and am doing the same for the second game. In my opinion, they improved almost everything that didn't work about the first game, and removed the things that made the game feel cluttered an unintuitive. The addition of a fully voiced main character is making me actually care about the story this time around. The only real problem I have is with all of the re-used environments and the small-ness of the game overall. That, however, is a small price to pay for all of the improvements in other areas. This is, of course, my opinion, So feel free to tell me how much of an idiot I am