Dragon Age II: The Truth

[Slycne]

snip

I apologize if I misrepresented myself.

When I say that I think detailed mechanics are not the most important thing what we should be striving for, I am not suggesting we run into the narrativist camp. In fact I think strong and definitive mechanics are important, but the point I was driving for was that they should exist as a frame work for player agency. Player's freedom of choice, even in it's substantially more limited form in CRPGs, is where I wish more games would push their development time. Being able to tackle any combat or social situation in a variety of interesting ways is always going to be a more important choice for me than being able to tell a companion what to wear. The later only provides the illusion of deep mechanics and choice, where as the former is it really applied to the world. I'd love to see the first CRPG where a truly emigrant story could result from the player's actions.

 

[Need MOAR APPLES]

(I have DA:O spoilers)
My biggest gripe of the game was everything I did in Awakening and Origins just felt like it was a small reference instead of "Creating your own World" is something I remember Bioware saying about the game. The Hero of Fereldan had stopped the blight blah blah blah...Well I had Loghain sacrifice himself to beat the game and had my guy marry Queen Anora...NOT ONCE did I hear Loghain's name mentioned which really bugged me. Only once I heard about one of my character's exploits and that was he was on the throne. A few lines here and there does not mean I'm creating my own world Bioware..

 

[Nimcha]

I'm not going to comment on your entire post since that's pointless. I completely disagree with you on almost everything regarding the changes made to the game as opposed to its predecessor. But you articulate your opinion well enough and you're entitled to it, so there's not much point in going into a debate about it. That being said, I do agree about the recycling of areas. It does get a little tiring after a while, and there's no good excuse for it. For me it doesn't break immersion as much though, but again that's personal.

But I do have to comment on the following since I do not agree with it in the slightest but it's also just completely untrue, regardless of what the title of this thread might be:

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've been playing a Two-handed warrior Hawke and I've used each of my companions in different missions. Sometimes I take Aveline, sometimes I tank myself. As long as you keep a good mix of ranged, melee and some sort of support any party composition will do the job. And I am playing on Hard difficulty, so it still is challenging enough. In Origins, if you played on any difficulty above Normal, you just had to have either Wynne in your party of heal yourself. You also HAD to bring a tank, whether that was Alistair or Shale. I liked mixing up my party compositions because of the flavour dialogue and for personal RP reasons, but the game just wouldn't let me.

Now I've just done a questline using Fenris, Merril and Isabela where I previously used Aveline, Anders and Sebastian. So, in conclusion, the quoted part is anything but 'The Truth'.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm not going to comment on your entire post since that's pointless. I completely disagree with you on almost everything regarding the changes made to the game as opposed to its predecessor. But you articulate your opinion well enough and you're entitled to it, so there's not much point in going into a debate about it. That being said, I do agree about the recycling of areas. It does get a little tiring after a while, and there's no good excuse for it. For me it doesn't break immersion as much though, but again that's personal.

But I do have to comment on the following since I do not agree with it in the slightest but it's also just completely untrue, regardless of what the title of this thread might be:

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've been playing a Two-handed warrior Hawke and I've used each of my companions in different missions. Sometimes I take Aveline, sometimes I tank myself. As long as you keep a good mix of ranged, melee and some sort of support any party composition will do the job. And I am playing on Hard difficulty, so it still is challenging enough. In Origins, if you played on any difficulty above Normal, you just had to have either Wynne in your party of heal yourself. You also HAD to bring a tank, whether that was Alistair or Shale. I liked mixing up my party compositions because of the flavour dialogue and for personal RP reasons, but the game just wouldn't let me.

Now I've just done a questline using Fenris, Merril and Isabela where I previously used Aveline, Anders and Sebastian. So, in conclusion, the quoted part is anything but 'The Truth'.

Actually it is the truth because you yourself are saying that you made Hawke the tank for example. The point was that if your not that type of character yourself you didn't have much in the way of a choice. Same thing with swapping Anders out because your character is a spirit healer.

Your also seem to be missing the point about DA:O. Due to your abillity to customize characters, nothing prevented you from say taking Sten and selecting all his skills from level up in "Sword and Shield" for example, you could do it with Oghrim as well. Thus there was no actual requirement that you use one of the characters that default to tank, as any warrior could be build up as a tank. This became even easier in "Awakening" and the DLC where you gained access to the abillity to wipe skill distribution and develop the characters from level 1.

You might be able to make do with say using Fenris as a tank, but it puts you at a disadvantage. He's glued to using a two handed sword, so he can't even equip a shield, never mind develop skills based around it as he levels.

There is also the issue of personalities and path. For example if your playing Hawke as a Templar (warrior), sure you don't need to use Aveline especially if your a sword and shield fighter BUT at the same time you pretty much have one healer character and your going to need to drag Anders around, which means your going to have to endure his constantly pro-mage whining, and deal with a character that shouldn't be in your party given the way your playing.

In the first game understand that while Wynne starts out as a spirit healer, Morrigan can ALSO learn that specialization and especially at the time you get her, it's ridiculously easy to turn her into a healer who is ultimatly going to be using all the same abillities Wynne does.

In DA2 you can't make Merril a serious healer, because she doesn't have an availible skill tree for it! The most she could do is take a few of the very basic heals from creation, but in a lot of cases that just isn't going to be enough. If your into high octane masochism you might be able to eventually tough through it, but really a group heal is one of those things you pretty much need to have access to. That means Anders or Hawke as a mage.

 

[Nimcha]

I'm not going to comment on your entire post since that's pointless. I completely disagree with you on almost everything regarding the changes made to the game as opposed to its predecessor. But you articulate your opinion well enough and you're entitled to it, so there's not much point in going into a debate about it. That being said, I do agree about the recycling of areas. It does get a little tiring after a while, and there's no good excuse for it. For me it doesn't break immersion as much though, but again that's personal.

But I do have to comment on the following since I do not agree with it in the slightest but it's also just completely untrue, regardless of what the title of this thread might be:

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've been playing a Two-handed warrior Hawke and I've used each of my companions in different missions. Sometimes I take Aveline, sometimes I tank myself. As long as you keep a good mix of ranged, melee and some sort of support any party composition will do the job. And I am playing on Hard difficulty, so it still is challenging enough. In Origins, if you played on any difficulty above Normal, you just had to have either Wynne in your party of heal yourself. You also HAD to bring a tank, whether that was Alistair or Shale. I liked mixing up my party compositions because of the flavour dialogue and for personal RP reasons, but the game just wouldn't let me.

Now I've just done a questline using Fenris, Merril and Isabela where I previously used Aveline, Anders and Sebastian. So, in conclusion, the quoted part is anything but 'The Truth'.

Actually it is the truth because you yourself are saying that you made Hawke the tank for example. The point was that if your not that type of character yourself you didn't have much in the way of a choice. Same thing with swapping Anders out because your character is a spirit healer.

Your also seem to be missing the point about DA:O. Due to your abillity to customize characters, nothing prevented you from say taking Sten and selecting all his skills from level up in "Sword and Shield" for example, you could do it with Oghrim as well. Thus there was no actual requirement that you use one of the characters that default to tank, as any warrior could be build up as a tank. This became even easier in "Awakening" and the DLC where you gained access to the abillity to wipe skill distribution and develop the characters from level 1.

You might be able to make do with say using Fenris as a tank, but it puts you at a disadvantage. He's glued to using a two handed sword, so he can't even equip a shield, never mind develop skills based around it as he levels.

There is also the issue of personalities and path. For example if your playing Hawke as a Templar (warrior), sure you don't need to use Aveline especially if your a sword and shield fighter BUT at the same time you pretty much have one healer character and your going to need to drag Anders around, which means your going to have to endure his constantly pro-mage whining, and deal with a character that shouldn't be in your party given the way your playing.

In the first game understand that while Wynne starts out as a spirit healer, Morrigan can ALSO learn that specialization and especially at the time you get her, it's ridiculously easy to turn her into a healer who is ultimatly going to be using all the same abillities Wynne does.

In DA2 you can't make Merril a serious healer, because she doesn't have an availible skill tree for it! The most she could do is take a few of the very basic heals from creation, but in a lot of cases that just isn't going to be enough. If your into high octane masochism you might be able to eventually tough through it, but really a group heal is one of those things you pretty much need to have access to. That means Anders or Hawke as a mage.

Honestly, did you even read my post? I don't mind discussing this but it's rather pointless if you're just going to ignore me. I never said I made either Hawke or Aveline my tank. Sometimes I just don't use a tank at all. So far I have never felt I needed to have Anders in my party, or anyone else for that matter. Are you actually playing the game right, if you really can't play without Anders in your party?

The talent specs of my companions also differ greatly from my first playthrough as a rogue, since there are a lot more options. Also because the talent trees differ from character to character, it adds more personality to your companions. Morrigan and Wynne were both mages with the exact same available talents, Anders and Merril couldn't be more different. While in DAO you just had a few must-have talents and the rest was either crap or only occasionally useful.

All in all, in my experience I have more freedom to compose my party than I had in DAO. That is my personal experience, but it makes your 'truth' just another personal experience.

 

[Therumancer]

[Honestly, did you even read my post? I don't mind discussing this but it's rather pointless if you're just going to ignore me. I never said I made either Hawke or Aveline my tank. Sometimes I just don't use a tank at all. So far I have never felt I needed to have Anders in my party, or anyone else for that matter. Are you actually playing the game right, if you really can't play without Anders in your party?

The talent specs of my companions also differ greatly from my first playthrough as a rogue, since there are a lot more options. Also because the talent trees differ from character to character, it adds more personality to your companions. Morrigan and Wynne were both mages with the exact same available talents, Anders and Merril couldn't be more different. While in DAO you just had a few must-have talents and the rest was either crap or only occasionally useful.

All in all, in my experience I have more freedom to compose my party than I had in DAO. That is my personal experience, but it makes your 'truth' just another personal experience.

Actually I'm not ignoring you, like a few other dicussions I am trying to prevent things from getting off on too much of a tangent, and there are certain points that I think I already addressed and I didn't want to re-state myself given the length my posts tend to already reach and the amount of things I already say again. Sort of like a guy I was discussing "Killzone 3" with not too long ago. Not intentionally being arrogant, it's just
I don't want some of these discussions to wind up going on forever.

I also admit I do it sometimes to avoid being rude, since I prefer to keep my posts as unconfrontational as possible even when discussing touchy subjects, and despite occasional attacks on me.

See, I browse a decent number of fandom related sites, even if this is the only one I post on regularly (and think of how much time I put into some of these messages, while still finding time to game and do other things). A lot of the issues I'm bringing up are not things that are unique to me, but things I can verify, that have been discussed in a number of places.

People being railroaded into using specific companions with personalities contrary to the path they want to take is a common complaint, and has been there since pretty much day 1. I worked under the assumption that you were using Hawke to pick up the slack for the characters you were not using, because it's more polite than to question the validity of your claims given the extent of the complaint by people getting stuck with Anders or Aveline. Maybe your just *that* good, I don't know you, so I can't say, but honestly even if you are it doesn't counter the design flaw that has been annoying so many people. Hey, you can't judge every basketball player by the standards of Michael Jordan. Hey, I might suck, but that doesn't nessicarly mean I'm wrong, as apparently a lot of other people suck too.


Now, I will concede that with a lot of saving and reloading just about any party combination is doable. What's more it is possible to use a lot of un-optimized parties for parts of the game. But I'm sorry there are situations where you are going to need a dedicated healer, or someone who can seriously tank. You seem to concede that to some extent, so I honestly don't see what we're argueing about.

The bottom line is that the game would have been substantially better had they worked on the companion system. Either made the characters more customizable in their skill sets, or simply included more companions with a broader range of personality types. I mean cripes, do we REALLY need three rogues when we have only one tank and one healer?

I don't mind discussing things either, but implications about relative playing skill aren't going to go anywhere. Even if we wind up vehemently disagree on this subject, we might want to discuss other things later without it being entiely tainted by disagreements over a game and industry situation that will be yesterday's news within a year (and I'd imagine we'll both still be here on these forums).