I've been reading messages about "Dragon Age Rage" for the last few days, while playing the game pretty heavily, and decided I want to clarify a few things here. Especially seeing as I think people have had difficulty articulating what they are trying to say, or at least not being able to point fingers at specific problems.
Before any discussion about the operation of the game, sub-systems, options, or any of that stuff there is one thing both sides have to understand. This project was a rush job compared to the first one, and no amount of fandom, or beating around the bush can change that. This is what is at the root of a lot of the complaints. If the game wasn't a rush job, then really Bioware needs to work on quality control with it's employees because the game is really sloppy. Whichever case it might be, I think Bioware being involved in so many projects simultaneously is hurting their development. Rather than having a quality team it focuses 100% on a given project, it has it's people spread out between "Dragon Age", "Mass Effect", and "Old Republic Online". The latter project probably has their best people involved most of the time (no matter where the names show up) simply because their bosses doubtlessly demand it due to the reported hundreds of millions of dollars involved. No matter the specifics I think this is hurting Bioware.
What is sloppy about the game? Well understand that in the first game you had a ton of differant enviroments you could explore, and a main quest that you could pursue the various parts of in any order you wanted to (and move between them). DA2 on the other hand has not only a very linear structure, but is also set up in such a way that it re-uses the same exact maps constantly. Whether it's a main quest or a sidequest, you pretty much visit the same regions (Docks, Coast, Lowtown, etc...) and the only differance is what enemies spawn.... for a large part of the game. In the first game you kept going to new regions, and most importantly the enemy encounters were all carefully placed and balanced, and frequently start out in logical places for the trappings around them when you reach them in the map. Not only is DA2 reusing the same exact areas constantly, but the enemies tend to just suddenly appear. Where in the first game the challenge was largely to beat another band of bad guys you spot flat out, in DA2 you wind up fighting waves of opponents. You have the first guys that appear, then you have other guys literally falling out of the sky, or just mysteriously appearing to replace their comrades as you chop them down. What challenge is present frequently comes from having no idea what your actually going to fight, since you might start out fighting say eight thugs, but then see more thugs with bigger health bars appear, or even mages that were not there to begin with suddenly spawn in the flight when you've killed enough stuff for them to pop out of the queue. The overall effect is similar to old JRPG action-RPGs like "Sudeki" where you enter an area, and monsters just spawn until it opens the way to the next area (or in this case completes the quest, or lets you move on). In short it's really badly done, ESPECIALLY when you compare it to the first game. However "Dragon Age: Origins" also had a longer development cycle (which is why some of the first areas made showed their age), and apparently the full resources of Bioware invested specifically on it, with all their best people in the project.
Now, I can see how the above design appeals to some people. After all it's less about tactics as much about killing, and of course it means that players don't have to explore to find the monsters and treasures and such in quite the same way as the first game. It's hard to get lost, with less options making it far less intimidating, and of course the monsters just popping out of nowhere makes the combat pretty straightforward. If your a big player of action games, you probably think this kind of "wave fighting" is good because it's more of what your used to... overcoming raw numbers, as opposed to more of a focus on invidual combat and specific actions.
When it comes to the more frequently commented aspects of the game, such as the lack of customization options and such, there is no way around the simple fact that there is less there. Characters only have one weapon type they can use, and whole skill sets from the first game are missing. Some characters like Varric don't even have a weapon TYPE to choose from, but instead have a single weapon integral to them which upgrades itself as you play.
Above and beyond the "dumbing down" that this represents, it means that you really have very little choice in your party. If Hawke has not chosen a specific role, then you have to use the NPC that does that job in a lot of situations. There is pretty much one tank character, a DPS warrior, a ranged rogue, a melee rogue, and two mages both of who have damage abillities, but one of who can be a healer if Hawke isn't one (and if Hawke isn't a healer, you pretty much need to bring him along). You can't choose the characters you want to use based on who you like, and then customize them to do the jobs you want. Say if you had your main character in Origins as an Archer, you could say make Leliana a dual wielder. If you wanted your character to be a tank, but enjoyed Alaistair's banter with Morrigan, you could build Alistair up as a two handed fighter, if you hated Alistair you could build Sten or Oghrim up as sword and shield fighters to replace him. This isn't an option in this came, Aveline uses sword and shield, and can never use any other weapon, she can't even switch over to a bow. Fenris uses a two handed sword, you can't turn him into a sword and shield fighter. If you happen to want to play a rogue or mage with a seriously criminal bent, you have no choice but to literally drag the captain of the guard around with you (and listen to her whine when you RP that way) when you need a tank.
I can understand how a lot of people who thought Dragon Age: Origins was too complicated like a lot of the changes here. Differant stroke for differant folks. However, at the same time this is a sequel, and what we're looking at here isn't an improvement on what was there beforehand, but rather scrapping the entire thing and re-doing it. I might feel differantly if it was done well, but it really wasn't. Honestly I don't think they were "innovating" but trying to pass off a sloppy design job as being improvements.
I'll also honestly say that the vibe is entirely differant from the first game, and by this I don't mean a "more intricate and personal story". I mean, the first game seemed like a well written work of western fantasy, like "Lord Of The Rings" in game form, the combat seemed like what squaring off with bad guys should be in sword and sorcery. The issue with "DA2" is that I feel like I'm in a bloody Anime, I mean instead of having to actually set up, or flank for a backstab, a rogue can literally teleport behind his enemies... not to mention throwing grenades around (flasks) like he's Batman or something. It doesn't help when you have dockside dregs jumping into battle like Ninjas as fast as you cut them down with your over the top attacks. The overall effect is such where I have trouble seeing it as the same world as the first game, never mind the same sense of reality. If the first game was Jackson's "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, this one is Tarantino's "Kill Bill". It's fine to have fantasy games that have differant takes on the genere, but not within the same series.
In the end I don't think there will be any universal consensus here, however these are my thoughts on the subject. I think both sides are getting too extreme in their arguements, and also not bothering to really look at how the game was put together. With more time to create more zones, add more companions so you could have some choices for differant playstyles to counterbalance the lack of customization, and work out the combat balance and "spawning" so you don't basically wind up in say a town square watching low-rent thugs with amazing ninja abillities leap off buildings (or fall of invisible kites or whatever) into battle, it would have been workable. Also while I can understand wanting to make combat a little more flashy and active (even if I thought it was fine before), there is such a thing as overkill. This is a fantasy game, but Dragon Age was going for a degree of realism as opposed to the logic of some anime where "anything goes if it's cool". This is sword and sorcery, not kung-fu theater, and rogues should not be spot teleporting and throwing chemical weapons from a bottomless utility belt (I pick on the rogue because it's the worst offender for sheer "WTF were they thinking").
To be fair I think most reviews are too top heavy (for a lot of reasons). Very average games wind up with a 7 or 8. On the Therumancer 10 point scale, I'd give this game a "4" with a "5" actually being average. The rating being slightly below average largely because of the quality of the first game in the series (which it failed to improve on), and sloppy design, no matter what the actual reason is, there is no way around the simple fact that you keep running around the same recycled maps while monsters appear out of nowhere. There is no excuse why there couldn't have been more areas to explore, and really they should have put more time into individually setting and balancing the encounters rather than swarming the player with waves. People who give this game a "sucktastic" 1 or 2 rating are being a bit too brutal, but honestly I can think of a lot of RPGs where the developers put more time into the design instead of dialing it in, and letting the dialogue and cut scenes hopefully carry it. I think it's unfair for a truely impartial reviewer to rave about this game under the circumstances. In fact the cynic in me thinks that even with top heavy reviews anyone giving this a 4.5 or 5 on a 5 point scale or anything above a 7 on a 10 point scale can be considered substantially biased and probably a sign of where a lot of the DA2 advertising dollars went. Professional reviewers can't bite the hands that feed them, and a rating like mine is thus impractical, but at the same time with games like this you usually see ratings where you can read between the lines.
Perhaps as time goes on DA2 with retroactively grow on me. Rated at a "4" for me, understand I am having fun with this game, however out of all the RPGs I've played I doubt this one will stand as one of my all time best gaming experiences. It's a new game (as opposed to oes I've played heavily) so it gives me something to do, but I'll be very surprised if when I look back at the year this game winds up being one of my top picks. Sad, because I REALLY wanted to like this game, despite my griping about the whole "Hawke" thing, I was hoping that Bioware would blow me away like they did with "Origins" and dispel my doubts. Honestly, walking away from it, I'm not quite as annoyed with not having origin options, or even with the reduction in overall complexity, as much as I am with just how sloppy and reptitive it gets.
Seriously, keep track of how many times you wind up running through the same areas for diffrant things. I mean in Origins I DID revisit certain areas (like the cities where the merchants were) a few times, but as the plot went on the areas (Forest, Deep Roads, Mage Tower, Redcliffe) were all distinctive and it did a good job of making me feel like I was experiencing new things. I can only beat thugs down in the same slum so many times before I start to feel it's a bit too repetitive.
Before any discussion about the operation of the game, sub-systems, options, or any of that stuff there is one thing both sides have to understand. This project was a rush job compared to the first one, and no amount of fandom, or beating around the bush can change that. This is what is at the root of a lot of the complaints. If the game wasn't a rush job, then really Bioware needs to work on quality control with it's employees because the game is really sloppy. Whichever case it might be, I think Bioware being involved in so many projects simultaneously is hurting their development. Rather than having a quality team it focuses 100% on a given project, it has it's people spread out between "Dragon Age", "Mass Effect", and "Old Republic Online". The latter project probably has their best people involved most of the time (no matter where the names show up) simply because their bosses doubtlessly demand it due to the reported hundreds of millions of dollars involved. No matter the specifics I think this is hurting Bioware.
What is sloppy about the game? Well understand that in the first game you had a ton of differant enviroments you could explore, and a main quest that you could pursue the various parts of in any order you wanted to (and move between them). DA2 on the other hand has not only a very linear structure, but is also set up in such a way that it re-uses the same exact maps constantly. Whether it's a main quest or a sidequest, you pretty much visit the same regions (Docks, Coast, Lowtown, etc...) and the only differance is what enemies spawn.... for a large part of the game. In the first game you kept going to new regions, and most importantly the enemy encounters were all carefully placed and balanced, and frequently start out in logical places for the trappings around them when you reach them in the map. Not only is DA2 reusing the same exact areas constantly, but the enemies tend to just suddenly appear. Where in the first game the challenge was largely to beat another band of bad guys you spot flat out, in DA2 you wind up fighting waves of opponents. You have the first guys that appear, then you have other guys literally falling out of the sky, or just mysteriously appearing to replace their comrades as you chop them down. What challenge is present frequently comes from having no idea what your actually going to fight, since you might start out fighting say eight thugs, but then see more thugs with bigger health bars appear, or even mages that were not there to begin with suddenly spawn in the flight when you've killed enough stuff for them to pop out of the queue. The overall effect is similar to old JRPG action-RPGs like "Sudeki" where you enter an area, and monsters just spawn until it opens the way to the next area (or in this case completes the quest, or lets you move on). In short it's really badly done, ESPECIALLY when you compare it to the first game. However "Dragon Age: Origins" also had a longer development cycle (which is why some of the first areas made showed their age), and apparently the full resources of Bioware invested specifically on it, with all their best people in the project.
Now, I can see how the above design appeals to some people. After all it's less about tactics as much about killing, and of course it means that players don't have to explore to find the monsters and treasures and such in quite the same way as the first game. It's hard to get lost, with less options making it far less intimidating, and of course the monsters just popping out of nowhere makes the combat pretty straightforward. If your a big player of action games, you probably think this kind of "wave fighting" is good because it's more of what your used to... overcoming raw numbers, as opposed to more of a focus on invidual combat and specific actions.
When it comes to the more frequently commented aspects of the game, such as the lack of customization options and such, there is no way around the simple fact that there is less there. Characters only have one weapon type they can use, and whole skill sets from the first game are missing. Some characters like Varric don't even have a weapon TYPE to choose from, but instead have a single weapon integral to them which upgrades itself as you play.
Above and beyond the "dumbing down" that this represents, it means that you really have very little choice in your party. If Hawke has not chosen a specific role, then you have to use the NPC that does that job in a lot of situations. There is pretty much one tank character, a DPS warrior, a ranged rogue, a melee rogue, and two mages both of who have damage abillities, but one of who can be a healer if Hawke isn't one (and if Hawke isn't a healer, you pretty much need to bring him along). You can't choose the characters you want to use based on who you like, and then customize them to do the jobs you want. Say if you had your main character in Origins as an Archer, you could say make Leliana a dual wielder. If you wanted your character to be a tank, but enjoyed Alaistair's banter with Morrigan, you could build Alistair up as a two handed fighter, if you hated Alistair you could build Sten or Oghrim up as sword and shield fighters to replace him. This isn't an option in this came, Aveline uses sword and shield, and can never use any other weapon, she can't even switch over to a bow. Fenris uses a two handed sword, you can't turn him into a sword and shield fighter. If you happen to want to play a rogue or mage with a seriously criminal bent, you have no choice but to literally drag the captain of the guard around with you (and listen to her whine when you RP that way) when you need a tank.
I can understand how a lot of people who thought Dragon Age: Origins was too complicated like a lot of the changes here. Differant stroke for differant folks. However, at the same time this is a sequel, and what we're looking at here isn't an improvement on what was there beforehand, but rather scrapping the entire thing and re-doing it. I might feel differantly if it was done well, but it really wasn't. Honestly I don't think they were "innovating" but trying to pass off a sloppy design job as being improvements.
I'll also honestly say that the vibe is entirely differant from the first game, and by this I don't mean a "more intricate and personal story". I mean, the first game seemed like a well written work of western fantasy, like "Lord Of The Rings" in game form, the combat seemed like what squaring off with bad guys should be in sword and sorcery. The issue with "DA2" is that I feel like I'm in a bloody Anime, I mean instead of having to actually set up, or flank for a backstab, a rogue can literally teleport behind his enemies... not to mention throwing grenades around (flasks) like he's Batman or something. It doesn't help when you have dockside dregs jumping into battle like Ninjas as fast as you cut them down with your over the top attacks. The overall effect is such where I have trouble seeing it as the same world as the first game, never mind the same sense of reality. If the first game was Jackson's "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, this one is Tarantino's "Kill Bill". It's fine to have fantasy games that have differant takes on the genere, but not within the same series.
In the end I don't think there will be any universal consensus here, however these are my thoughts on the subject. I think both sides are getting too extreme in their arguements, and also not bothering to really look at how the game was put together. With more time to create more zones, add more companions so you could have some choices for differant playstyles to counterbalance the lack of customization, and work out the combat balance and "spawning" so you don't basically wind up in say a town square watching low-rent thugs with amazing ninja abillities leap off buildings (or fall of invisible kites or whatever) into battle, it would have been workable. Also while I can understand wanting to make combat a little more flashy and active (even if I thought it was fine before), there is such a thing as overkill. This is a fantasy game, but Dragon Age was going for a degree of realism as opposed to the logic of some anime where "anything goes if it's cool". This is sword and sorcery, not kung-fu theater, and rogues should not be spot teleporting and throwing chemical weapons from a bottomless utility belt (I pick on the rogue because it's the worst offender for sheer "WTF were they thinking").
To be fair I think most reviews are too top heavy (for a lot of reasons). Very average games wind up with a 7 or 8. On the Therumancer 10 point scale, I'd give this game a "4" with a "5" actually being average. The rating being slightly below average largely because of the quality of the first game in the series (which it failed to improve on), and sloppy design, no matter what the actual reason is, there is no way around the simple fact that you keep running around the same recycled maps while monsters appear out of nowhere. There is no excuse why there couldn't have been more areas to explore, and really they should have put more time into individually setting and balancing the encounters rather than swarming the player with waves. People who give this game a "sucktastic" 1 or 2 rating are being a bit too brutal, but honestly I can think of a lot of RPGs where the developers put more time into the design instead of dialing it in, and letting the dialogue and cut scenes hopefully carry it. I think it's unfair for a truely impartial reviewer to rave about this game under the circumstances. In fact the cynic in me thinks that even with top heavy reviews anyone giving this a 4.5 or 5 on a 5 point scale or anything above a 7 on a 10 point scale can be considered substantially biased and probably a sign of where a lot of the DA2 advertising dollars went. Professional reviewers can't bite the hands that feed them, and a rating like mine is thus impractical, but at the same time with games like this you usually see ratings where you can read between the lines.
Perhaps as time goes on DA2 with retroactively grow on me. Rated at a "4" for me, understand I am having fun with this game, however out of all the RPGs I've played I doubt this one will stand as one of my all time best gaming experiences. It's a new game (as opposed to oes I've played heavily) so it gives me something to do, but I'll be very surprised if when I look back at the year this game winds up being one of my top picks. Sad, because I REALLY wanted to like this game, despite my griping about the whole "Hawke" thing, I was hoping that Bioware would blow me away like they did with "Origins" and dispel my doubts. Honestly, walking away from it, I'm not quite as annoyed with not having origin options, or even with the reduction in overall complexity, as much as I am with just how sloppy and reptitive it gets.
Seriously, keep track of how many times you wind up running through the same areas for diffrant things. I mean in Origins I DID revisit certain areas (like the cities where the merchants were) a few times, but as the plot went on the areas (Forest, Deep Roads, Mage Tower, Redcliffe) were all distinctive and it did a good job of making me feel like I was experiencing new things. I can only beat thugs down in the same slum so many times before I start to feel it's a bit too repetitive.
