The faults of DA II

[Janus Vesta]

Well the word on the street is they told the team at the last minute their expansion will actually be turned into a full game... oddly enough we ended up with 1/4 of a Dragon Age game, horribly padded out and barely tied together.

What was DA:Awakening then?

The idea is that Awakening was designed as an Expansion, but it became so big it could almost be it's own game, Bioware were working on addons/expansions for Origins when they suddenly switched gear and began making a new game, before Witch Hunt came out they began to talk about an Awakening-esque expanson but quickly shut up about it. It's rumoured that DA2 was that expansion and they decided they could turn it into a full game if they expanded it. Sadly they only got 15 months to develop the game, and as a new game with a new art style they couldn't save time by reusng art assets.

No one knows if it's true or not but it does make a lot of sense.

 

[Kavonde]

Chiming in as another member of the "Actually Really Liked DA2" Squad.

Well, before I say anything, I've gotta admit that DA2 had some serious, serious issues. I could stomach the repeated environments the first time through, but they became unbearable on subsequent playthroughs. And yeah, the plot completely goes to hell in Act III, though there's still some interesting stuff going on there.

However, the main reason I stick up for DA2 is that it's the first Bioware game in forever that wasn't structured exactly like every other Bioware game. Quick, name this game: you start off in a fairly peaceful setting, but stumble upon a bad guy's plan, and in the course of getting involved discover/gain some unique power that only you have. Then you travel around, meeting new companions and seeing new sights and doing tons of sidequests, until, about halfway through the game, there's a sudden dramatic twist/revelation that casts a new light on everything you've done since the beginning. Then you do some more stuff, eventually returning to the major city you've been operating out of to confront the villain in the heart of your civilization's power.

If you answered Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age: Origins, you are correct.

DA2 broke that mold by basing the plot around a single location over the course of several years, telling the story of Hawke and Co. as they matured and built lives for themselves. Instead of being a straightforward adventure, it was more about how a series of events shaped these peoples' lives, and the city of Kirkwall. It was really more like something Obsidian would have come up with, and I'm one of those suckers who's willing to overlook the major flaw that every Obsidian game has because the writing's always fantastic.

Now, again, everything kind of fell apart in the third act, but at least we'll always have the awesome look into Qunari culture and philosophy from Act II.

Also, I thought that each of the party members--well, except for Isabella and Sephirelf--were pretty interesting and well-written. Varric was just great: always useful to have around and usually a fun addition to conversations. Ditto Aveline. Merril was unique: an obvious "cute geek girl" nerd-bait character a la Tali, but one who was so blindingly naive that you couldn't help but hate her. And then there's Anders, who, while he might have been a creepy, mentally unbalanced idiot, was at least interesting. (Plus, if you brought him along with Varric and Isabella anywhere, it was basically a nonstop snark-fest.)

Plus, a bit of fridge brilliance: I thought it was stupid and ridiculous how many enemies would come pouring in to fight every time you got into a skirmish, too. And then I realized that the whole game was framed by Varric retelling the story to the inquisitor; he was just embellishing the insane amounts of violence to punch it up a bit.

Echoing everyone else above, I think if EA had actually given the devs enough time and money to make a proper sequel, the general consensus on the game would be very different. As it is, it's a game with a lot of interesting ideas, most of which never really got to be fleshed out.

And now that the "A" team is back from making The Old Republic, we can expect DA3 to fall right back into the usual Bioware formula. Yay.

 

[ThriKreen]

No one knows if it's true or not but it does make a lot of sense.

Hrm, no one knows if it's true or not, eh? Are you sure they only got 15 months? Because most games usually go through several months to a year of prototyping/pre-production before it's even announced, to decide on what they'll be doing, and in the case of sequels, usually starts before the lockdown phase of production - since during that phase it's mostly just polishing and bug fixing, with team members splinter off into the sequel/expansion/DLC groups.

And now that the "A" team is back from making The Old Republic, we can expect DA3 to fall right back into the usual Bioware formula. Yay.

Which "A"-team is that?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

The one thing that was a complete and utter deal breaker for me is that I quickly realized that this was not a proper, finished product. It felt raw and I did not enjoy playing it, and I did not enjoy Russian mail order dominatrix and beardless dwarf. I did not enjoy the actual game play changes, as it did not exactly feel like a second installment of the Dragon Age franchise, but rather a cheap and hurried World of Warcraft knockoff, hacked together by someone that wanted a bit more of that Ninja gaiden or whatever spice in it. So, obviously, I have no insight as to what happens later in the game, but I found everything right from booting it up quite offensive and a huge letdown, which had a severe impact on my opinion as to what to further expect from Bioware/EA.

I did not enjoy the fighting, which is quite an important component of such a game. While I eventually found my pacing, I still did not have 'fun' or felt in control of things. The NPC banter annoyed me and, at times, confused me and I just couldn't properly connect to them. Everything they said annoyed me. I don't get the fun bit of shaving a dwarf. I don't see the point of running my party along the walls of a rather narrow invisible tunnel, and I found the whole trip to be very unappealing. The way they butchered the characters and raped the lore gave me conclusive evidence that the whole purpose of this game was to piss me off. Not in a Dark Souls way, which can actually be enjoyed by a slight shift of focus and stance. More in a way of making me pay for something I believe I want and I believe I will enjoy, and then blowing raspberries at me for hours, just because I was dumb enough for believing, actually wanting to believe I'd get some more of that Dragon Age love. I felt betrayed and did what EA obviously wanted me to do, I burnt the vile thing on the pyre it truly deserved.

 

[Sp3ratus]

Calling it a spamfest is slamming the game harder than it deserves, if it's not true for all difficulties.

Well I finished it on nightmare and in most battles I was reading emails whilst running around with my mage tanking all the melee guys, the game is set up for retarded play.

Choosing to cheese encounters and then calling it easy seems a bit... contradictory.

The only reason that tactics are meaningless is because of the spawning enemies ruining any plans you had. The mechanics themselves though are just plain better.

As for the "spam fest," I believe auto-attack was an option that had to be enabled for some dumb reason. Though I've barely touched the game since I finished it the first time so I could be wrong. It was a stupid idea to not make it the default but it's still there.

Auto attack was on by default on the PC version and was only later introduced on the consoles.

I don't entirely agree with your assessment of tactics being useless. You have initial tactics for the first wave and when each additional wave spawns, you have to tweak those tactics to deal with the new threat. To me, repositioning and cooldown management is part of the tactics to get you through an encounter. So while I agree with you that initial planning is not nearly as useful as it was in DA:O, I still think there are important tactical considerations for each battle.

See, I disagree with most of your good points there. The combat was flashy, sure, but as a Rogue (I could barely even play through the game once) all I did was jump 30 feet into the air and jam my knives into someone's eyes, then jump to another guy and do the same over and over while random "reinforcements" rained from the heavens (literally leaping to the ground from the clouds above) over and over. There was extremely little strategy to it - in fact, even on the hardest difficulty the only time I had to plan out where I was positioning my squad was during that fight with the big rock-golem-thing. Everything else I would try to set them up for some strategy and then they would be flanked by the second of five waves, thereby turning the whole thing into a giant melee. There wasn't any real strategy behind it, and the fun was extremely short lived once I had jumped to the thousandth guy in a row.

Really? You never had to move your mage/healer away from where the reinforcements were coming from? You never had to use Barrier on your rogue getting oneshotted by assassins? You never had to use any CC or take out a dangerous enemy quickly(like the aforementioned assassins)? Cross-class combos? Silencing mages? Using any of those is using tatics to defeat an encounter.

I'll believe you if you say so, my own experience with nightmare just made it seem like simply allowing the AI to take over without tactics or any direction whatsoever didn't seem to be all that effective, without resorting to cheesing.

 

[Apollo45]

Really? You never had to move your mage/healer away from where the reinforcements were coming from? You never had to use Barrier on your rogue getting oneshotted by assassins? You never had to use any CC or take out a dangerous enemy quickly(like the aforementioned assassins)? Cross-class combos? Silencing mages? Using any of those is using tatics to defeat an encounter.

I'll believe you if you say so, my own experience with nightmare just made it seem like simply allowing the AI to take over without tactics or any direction whatsoever didn't seem to be all that effective, without resorting to cheesing.

Honestly, I didn't really. Sure, there were times where I had to move my mage around - by which I really mean moving him further and further back so he's more out of range of the assassins - and there were times where I got wrecked by a group of assassins, but after that it was as much a matter of realizing they're there and attacking them before they could attack me for the next fight. And yes, those are considered "tactics," like Leeroy Jenkensing into a fight is considered a tactic (one which I used rather successfully within the game). Clicking a single button can be considered a tactic, but there was no strategy to it. As some guy said, I could use the party mage to tank and they would just be able to continually heal themselves. Or I could tank with Aveline, who was so beastly that she just wouldn't die. Or I could let the others do their things and, like I said, jump around like a flea on crack with the Rogue and stab everyone's eyes out. The Rogue was so mobile that most of the time I didn't have to worry about being surrounded or anything. The leap-attack initiation let me bounce around everywhere, and if I ended up with too many guys around me I could just jump to the back line and walk away.

In any of those situations I would use a tactic or two here and there, but they were the most basic of "tactics" and there was no coherent strategy for the fights. No spying ahead, trying to figure out where the enemy would come from, where I could set up choke points, how to position my party, where to fall back to if I needed, where I would drop AOE spells, who I would attack first, and so on. 95% of the fights involved being "ambushed" on the streets by some guys in black, which would devolve into a mess where there were enemies and allies mixed between themselves everywhere, and when I killed those guys a few more waves of the exact same enemies would follow and then it would be over. It didn't matter if I led with my mages or with my tank, didn't matter if I focused the strongest enemies and left the weaklings for later or did the exact opposite. I've used more strategy playing Call of Duty than I had to in DA2. Especially when compared to DA:O, it just failed on the meat of the combat, even if it was flashier.

 

[Rawne1980]

Then...... truth been told, I started playing DAO and after I reached Flemeth hut I felt the the story/battle system/ect. was great, but the graphics were absolutely and totaly shit, so i had to stop playing and dowload a fucking ton of mods to play the game, if the game couldn't be moded I prolly had lost interes cause well, it looked horribly.

I do have to agree with you here.

I recently went back to play it and put in the Dragon Age redesigned and Immersive mods and it looks far better than it looks far better than it did.

 

[Sp3ratus]

Honestly, I didn't really.

You're a better player than I am then, I'll admit that.

As some guy said, I could use the party mage to tank and they would just be able to continually heal themselves. Or I could tank with Aveline, who was so beastly that she just wouldn't die.

Healers were quite limited in DA2, compared to DA:O. You had one single heal, one group heal, the health regen aura and potions. All except the health regen aura were on 40 sec cooldowns(30 sec for potion). I'd hardly call that continually healing and being squishy already, I can't really see how you'd use a mage to tank.

...and there were times where I got wrecked by a group of assassins, but after that it was as much a matter of realizing they're there and attacking them before they could attack me for the next fight.

didn't matter if I focused the strongest enemies and left the weaklings for later or did the exact opposite.

Those two quotes seem to be each other a bit. Wouldn't you say that taking down those types of enemies first is a part of the overall strategy?

My overall strategy(the way I use the word) was usually to take out the dangerous enemies first, like assassins or Arcane horrors, since those types can be quite dangerous. To do that, I used different tactics, like focusing on that target, using cooldowns, while my tank were tanking the others until my first target was down. After that, I'd usually take care of the guys with very little health, since they could be pesky for my healer. I thought it mattered quite a lot, choosing what targets to take down(ie the assassins). It did change, depending on the enemy setup, though. Positioning was something you had to adjust to, on the fly and make sure none of the weaker members were in a vulnerable position. Just because it doesn't happen before the fight, doesn't disqualify it from being part of the strategy.

You probably see it differently, but to me, there's strategy involved. We might even disagree on what it means semantically, that might be where the issue is, I don't know.

Also, as an aside, "Leeroy Jenkensing" in WoW might've worked in ordinary dungeons, but in raids, especially heroic ones(or earlier BC ones), doing that wouldn't get you far.

 

[C. Cain]

Even though there's little to add I, too, would like to chime in.

One of my biggest complaints is Anders. Or rather what they did to Anders. I really liked him in Awakening; his occasional sardonic quips were rather endearing. In Dragon Age II, however, there was nothing left of Anders' character. I can see what they tried to do, what with his so-called character arc, but they failed miserably.

He started out as a completely different, unlikable character and, after a lot of incoherent meandering, ended up as an even more different, even more unlikable character. The connections to Awakening was tenuous at best and didn't do him any favours. And, to add insult to injury, They also ruined Justice in the process.

 

[C. Cain]

Healers were quite limited in DA2, compared to DA:O. You had one single heal, one group heal, the health regen aura and potions. All except the health regen aura were on 40 sec cooldowns(30 sec for potion). I'd hardly call that continually healing and being squishy already, I can't really see how you'd use a mage to tank.

Well, any blood mage could be turned into DAII's equivalent of Arcane Warriors. As you may know auras and buffs only reserved a certain percentage of the character's mana. Thus you could simply cast 'activated' spells from hit points while 'sustained' spells such as Arcane Shield or Rock Armor merely drained your useless mana. Pour all your points into health, equip your blood mage with things like the Talisman of Saarebas or Voracity... et voilà there's your unstoppable tank.

 

[Sp3ratus]

Healers were quite limited in DA2, compared to DA:O. You had one single heal, one group heal, the health regen aura and potions. All except the health regen aura were on 40 sec cooldowns(30 sec for potion). I'd hardly call that continually healing and being squishy already, I can't really see how you'd use a mage to tank.

Well, any blood mage could be turned into DAII's equivalent of Arcane Warriors. As you may know auras and buffs only reserved a certain percentage of the character's mana. Thus you could simply cast 'activated' spells from hit points while 'sustained' spells such as Arcane Shield or Rock Armor merely drained your useless mana. Pour all your points into health, equip your blood mage with things like the Talisman of Saarebas or Voracity... et voilà there's your unstoppable tank.

Ah, of course. I didn't think of that. I only thought in terms of having a mage specced in Creation and Spirit Healer. Going blood mage tank might be an interesting way to go for when I do another playthrough of DA2.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Healers were quite limited in DA2, compared to DA:O. You had one single heal, one group heal, the health regen aura and potions. All except the health regen aura were on 40 sec cooldowns(30 sec for potion). I'd hardly call that continually healing and being squishy already, I can't really see how you'd use a mage to tank.

I actually found the changes to healing to be the single best change in the game. That and the longer potion cooldowns, it placed much more emphasis on effective tanking and freed up mages to be more versatile in their spellcasting. I think having it so spirit healers couldn't cast offensive spells in healing mode was a bit harsh, but even then if you set up the tactics properly (and the tactics system was genuinely good in DA2) you could have a character automatically switch to healing mode when required.

And yeah, as mentioned.. Blood Mage + Force Mage is an effective tank. Force Mage makes you impossible to knock down. Blood mage lets you get insane health, gives you self-healing and frees up your mana for sustained abilities. Both give you lots of control spells.

One of my biggest complaints is Anders. Or rather what they did to Anders. I really liked him in Awakening; his occasional sardonic quips were rather endearing. In Dragon Age II, however, there was nothing left of Anders' character. I can see what they tried to do, what with his so-called character arc, but they failed miserably.

Really?

I can see how its a massive change, but I can't see how the character in Awakenings was anything but just.. a mage with ADD.

This is actually the thing which most annoys me about Bioware's writing lately. The overabundance of characters whose only reaction to make smartass comments like they're auditioning for an amateur stageplay version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It's great when it's meant to come off as shallow or is revealed to be a defense mechanism, but sometimes I get the feeling I'm expected to find it charming or likable. Why? Why would anyone?

Seriously, Awakening in general just.. ugh.. Since when was Oghren a one-note joke about alcoholism? What the fuck is Anders' investment in anything? Why is an ostensibly serious fantasy setting suddenly full of all this goofy shit? Why is the cat called Ser Pounce-a-Lot when there's no Arthurian legend in this setting? Why is my character even here when he died killing the Archdaemon? For that matter, why is Oghren here when I invested all that time rehabilitating him?

Sorry.. I just genuinely don't understand why people slag off Dragon Age 2 when Awakening would barely cut it as an official expansion to a Neverwinter Nights game. Just my opinion, but seriously.. it's weird.

 

[C. Cain]

Really?

I can see how its a massive change, but I can't see how the character in Awakenings was anything but just.. a mage with ADD.

This is actually the thing which most annoys me about Bioware's writing lately. The overabundance of characters whose only reaction to make smartass comments like they're auditioning for an amateur stageplay version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It's great when it's meant to come off as shallow or is revealed to be a defense mechanism, but sometimes I get the feeling I'm expected to find it charming or likable. Why? Why would anyone?

Seriously, Awakening in general just.. ugh.. Since when was Oghren a one-note joke about alcoholism? What the fuck is Anders' investment in anything? Why is an ostensibly serious fantasy setting suddenly full of all this goofy shit? Why is the cat called Ser Pounce-a-Lot when there's no Arthurian legend in this setting? Why is my character even here when he died killing the Archdaemon? For that matter, why is Oghren here when I invested all that time rehabilitating him?

Sorry.. I just genuinely don't understand why people slag off Dragon Age 2 when Awakening would barely cut it as an official expansion to a Neverwinter Nights game. Just my opinion, but seriously.. it's weird.

I don't necessarily disagree with you as far as your criticisms of Awakening are concerned. Whether Anders was a well rounded or compelling character in the first place is debatable, I give you that. Having said that however, I personally liked him. And, quite frankly, I wouldn't have minded DAII's "Anders" all that much had he been a new, DAII specific, character.

 

[Souplex]

The bad: The combat no longer feels strategic, the class balance is gone, and they replace clever, well-designed encounters with endless waves.
The characters are all unlikable with the exception of Varric and Avaline. (Neither of whom you can put the moves on for some reason)
Merill is a complete idiot and seems to have been put in to appeal to the Talimancers and Japanime fans. (Two groups you want to distance yourself from as much as possible) Isabella has no character outside of being a slut. (You could schtupp her in Origins, so they decided to run with it) Anders went from the fun, likable version of Alistair we saw in Awakening, to a whiny, emo jackass. (Why couldn't they make up a new character, instead of mangling an existing one?) Fenris is just a jackass throughout. The fact that he's androgynous and uses a giant sword seems to be a naked pander to the Final Fantasy fanbase. (You want to distance yourself from that fanbase as much as possible)
You can no longer kit out your companions with armor, because apparently armor management is too complex. (Nobody liked it when they cut it in Space Wizards 2, why would they do it again?)
The events of the story are kind of stupid.
Bullshit Facebook tie-in stuff.
So much out of game unlockable stuff.
Recycled environments.
Hawke having a voice means that they're more pre-defined. It also limits the dialog choices. The wheel doesn't help.
I didn't care for the new art direction, but that's just me, and I tend to dislike change.
The player character is stuck playing as a human (As I've said many times: Playing as a human in a fantasy RPG is like playing as an accountant. It's fine if it's a choice. There are boring people who will take that choice, but don't prevent us from experiencing dwarven glory to save money on voice actors.

The good: Ummm....
Look at the cute kitten!

 

[spartandude]

No one knows if it's true or not but it does make a lot of sense.

Hrm, no one knows if it's true or not, eh? Are you sure they only got 15 months? Because most games usually go through several months to a year of prototyping/pre-production before it's even announced, to decide on what they'll be doing, and in the case of sequels, usually starts before the lockdown phase of production - since during that phase it's mostly just polishing and bug fixing, with team members splinter off into the sequel/expansion/DLC groups.

And now that the "A" team is back from making The Old Republic, we can expect DA3 to fall right back into the usual Bioware formula. Yay.

Which "A"-team is that?

yh i thought the "A" team all left bioware and most are actually working with obsidian now

 

[ThriKreen]

yh i thought the "A" team all left bioware and most are actually working with obsidian now

Funny thing, I've never heard of anyone going from Bioware to Obsidian. I only know of one instance of someone going from Obsidian to Bioware.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

My good: I liked the characters. Merrill's my favorite by far, but I liked them all. Except the Prince. I get that he is devote to the Chantry, but did they have to go with the cliche of your typical religious character? Blind to everything else? Leliana is devote, but we saw that the Chantry isn't her entire life.
The backstory. There are things buried just under the surface, hidden just off screen, peeking out of the shadows of this game that are truly epic. The uncharted dwarf city and the implications of the place, the mini-boss demons and the history behind them (keep in mind that the fourth, most powerful, is unaccounted for), whatever the Band of Three unleashed at the end of the game. All these backstory details could be amazing in their own right. Sadly, Hawke is too busy fighting for her life during all this to really take notice. And the stuff that happens in Legacy. Oh dear...
The story, in a way. Just hear me out. I liked the story for the most part. I think it did a decent portraying the rising conflict and tension, but it also showed a nice tail of someone building a life and not going out to save the world, but just trying to get by. Could it have been done better? Oh yes. A thousand times yes.
BioWare LISTENED. Okay, this team listened to the criticisms that they got about the game. You only need to look at the DLCs for proof. Hawke even makes a joke about one of the main complaints: too much time in Kirkwall. "We do seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time there, don't we?" They tried to address the complaints as best they could, but sadly, the damage had already been done. Still, this gives me hope for Dragon Age III.

The Bad: Spending so much time in ONE PLACE is my main complaint. Kirkwall, and recycled locations outside of Kirkwall, just made the game feel very small. Because it was.
Importing saves had little effect. Yes, I know there are things that are different depending on your choices, but after seeing how Mass Effect 2 handled importing saves, Dragon Age II just fell flat in comparison.
The story, mainly the third act. First act was great. Saving money to get out of the hell you were living in. Second act, trying to play diplomat and avoid the coming storm. Getting to know the reasons behind the Qunari's beliefs and their actions. Isabella's role in the end was amazing. But the third act, the one that was apparently the climax of the entire boiling tensions of Kirkwall, just fizzled out. Too short, too rushed, too, "Wait, I haven't been helping the mages, so why are you glaring at me?" feelings if you were siding with the Templars for the whole game. It didn't help that there seemed to be so many times where, if people had just sat down and talked and been reasonable, things could have been avoided. Instead, everyone was acting like two-year-olds.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The faults are many. Boring lifeless empty city, mostly terrible characters, poorly written and disjointed story, constantly re-used dungeons, boring combat, endless enemy waves, bad voice acting.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Importing saves had little effect. Yes, I know there are things that are different depending on your choices, but after seeing how Mass Effect 2 handled importing saves, Dragon Age II just fell flat in comparison.

Actually, looking into this, I think that was a limit of Origins. I'm not really technically literate enough to understand this in any detail, but if you look at a gibbed save editor for Mass Effect, there's a huge number of values. Origins simply wasn't exporting very many values at all, only those related to the broadest plot decisions.

As I understand it from early interviews, the Dragon Age series was originally intended to be a bit like the parts of the Ultima series, in that rather than having this coherent story between games you'd be coming back to the world in very different places and times and the events of previous games would be like a historical background for the world as a whole. At some point (possibly when Origins was more successful than imagined) someone decided to scrap this and have the stories set very close together with cameos and recurring characters, but the save exporting system clearly wasn't built to support this so you end up with weird and incongruous things like Leliana showing up because Origins never actually kept track of whether or not she died.

Sure, it's still a massive screw-up, but it seems to be more to do with the technical limitations of Origins than simply laziness on the part of the DA2 team.. and let's be totally honest, if they'd rolled with the original idea of unconnected stories, the fans who ended up getting way too into Origins would probably have flipped the fuck out.