Dragon Age: Origins isn't doing it for me. Should I keep going?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Tried again. Went to the keep in Redcliffe. Retried the combat with constant pausing. On easy it was basically pointless. Turned the difficulty to normal, couldn't get the hang of it and kept dying. Not putting myself through any more of this for now. This game simply leans too much on the elements I dislike.

I'm not sorry. This system of combining precise tactics, micromanagement of abilities and character positioning with preset AI behaviors and real time is terrible. Allies constantly get in the way or can't fit through a door frame. The AI burns through all my health potions so fast I barely have time to notice it. And yes, I fucking know I can adjust that setting, but all I can craft at the moment is Lesser Health Poultices (why not just call them potions?), and no matter what threshold I set for their usage, they drain just as quickly. I went to the werewolf place with over 70 of the damn things, and still was emptied out by the end. By the time I recognize what enemies I should put debuffs to things like movement speed on the enemy is already close enough to take an up close look at my nostril hairs. And don't even mention trying to keep an eye on what abilities enemies are using. I can't for the life of me see what benefit this system has over a turn-based one. Hell, even Ni No Kuni's combat was more manageable since you weren't meant to be constantly dictating the other members' every move.

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to. It showed the icon on his character panel, but the enemies seemed to target the other just as much as him. My player character has exactly 1 ability to use in melee, and guess what he does as soon as I relinquish control of him? Runs into melee of course, since that's what an archer's supposed to do.

So basically the only character with any kind of thought to put into combat is Morrigan. Actually too much thought, since she has no less than 12 different spells to use, and I still can't tell which ones are useful or not. Is Spider Form in any way useful? Should I open combat with debuffs to damage resist, movement speed or defense? Is using Frost Weapons worth using over a damage spell? Why in the bloody buggerfuck does the game force me to add yet another spell with every new level, when I barely know which starting spells are useful?

Party members whose movement, I remind you, I have no control over being able to trigger traps outside of combat is something someone should have their dick chopped off for.

I remember the game's writing catching my attention when I initially started playing this a couple of years ago. At the time I was surprised at how engaging the writing of a typical end of the world fantasy plot Bioware had managed to make. But now it just seems terribly ordinary and bland with absolutely zero surprises or twists to it. Thanks a lot, Witcher 3.

And let's face it: the game is an absolute eyesore visuals wise. Even after installing multiple texture and character model mods I'm still taken out of the experience by the shitty tree textures, poor draw distance, barren locations and stiff character animation.

Darkest Dungeon, my old friend
I've come to play with you again
Because a vision of mods came creeping
Caught my eye while I was browsing
And the vision of a better balanced game
Still remains

 

[DoPo]

Is Spider Form in any way useful?

No, as far as I can tell, shapeshifting is pretty much pointless.

Should I open combat with debuffs to damage resist, movement speed or defense?

Depends a bit on what you're facing. Sometimes nuking an enemy to kill them before they act is beneficial, other times you cannot do that, so you may as well buff or debuff. There isn't really one true answer here. If you are facing poweful opponents, you may as well try to get some out of combat - a force cage or some sort of sleep can do it, so you just focus on their buddies first. Other times, you may as well just buff your guys, so you try to get through the enemies either quicker or just to mitigate the incoming damage. It also depends on how exactly you prefer to play.

Is using Frost Weapons worth using over a damage spell?

If I remember correctly, you could activate that before combat, so you don't have to waste time inside of it. But overall, it's not that amazing, unless you heavily depend on only weapons to do the damage. I think I did use that spell, but just because I could, not because I needed to.

Why in the bloody buggerfuck does the game force me to add yet another spell with every new level, when I barely know which starting spells are useful?

So you can get to the good stuff - force cage shuts an enemy down, nightmare (or whatever it was called) can do the same, the thing that increases spell power combos very nicely with some of the other spells, the nullification glyph completely shuts down enemy casters, etc.

I remember the game's writing catching my attention when I initially started playing this a couple of years ago. At the time I was surprised at how engaging the writing of a typical end of the world fantasy plot Bioware had managed to make. But now it just seems terribly ordinary and bland with absolutely zero surprises or twists to it. Thanks a lot, Witcher 3.

I'm going to let you in on a secret - Dragon Age: Origins was always ordinary. Sure, BioWare did put a lot of polish, but the game is nothing but average in terms of themes and indeas. It doesn't bring anything rally new to the table, but it just brings out all the old stuff and makes them shinier.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to.

This is your problem. You don't have the right attitude to be able to enjoy these games. For me, sitting for hours going through all the skills meticulously and then planning out specifically which ones to get and which ones not to for a gameplan is half the fun of the game. Reading the descriptions isn't something contrary to playing a game. Playing games can be deep and complicated just as much as it can be anything else, so if you have an attitude of "learning and games are opposites" then you won't enjoy games where learning how to use all the skills and using this knowledge to create varied playstyles is the entire point of the game and what makes it fun.


The issue seems to be that you hadn't bothered properly assigning skills so you have a random mismatch of abilities whereas what you're supposed to do is plan out what task each char will do and then give them only those abilities that work for that task. If you need to figure out what each skill does, that's what the early parts of the game where it's still relatively easy were meant for. Instead of switching it to easy which makes progress effortless you should have just sat down and looked into your abilities and gear.

As for your archer going in to mellee, there's some kind of auto setting that makes them keep away and just shoot I believe.

 

[Kerg3927]

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to.

This is your problem. You don't have the right attitude to be able to enjoy these games. For me, sitting for hours going through all the skills meticulously and then planning out specifically which ones to get and which ones not to for a gameplan is half the fun of the game. Reading the descriptions isn't something contrary to playing a game. Playing games can be deep and complicated just as much as it can be anything else, so if you have an attitude of "learning and games are opposites" then you won't enjoy games where learning how to use all the skills and using this knowledge to create varied playstyles is the entire point of the game and what makes it fun.


The issue seems to be that you hadn't bothered properly assigning skills so you have a random mismatch of abilities whereas what you're supposed to do is plan out what task each char will do and then give them only those abilities that work for that task. If you need to figure out what each skill does, that's what the early parts of the game where it's still relatively easy were meant for. Instead of switching it to easy which makes progress effortless you should have just sat down and looked into your abilities and gear.

As for your archer going in to mellee, there's some kind of auto setting that makes them keep away and just shoot I believe.

/thread

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to.

This is your problem. You don't have the right attitude to be able to enjoy these games. For me, sitting for hours going through all the skills meticulously and then planning out specifically which ones to get and which ones not to for a gameplan is half the fun of the game. Reading the descriptions isn't something contrary to playing a game. Playing games can be deep and complicated just as much as it can be anything else, so if you have an attitude of "learning and games are opposites" then you won't enjoy games where learning how to use all the skills and using this knowledge to create varied playstyles is the entire point of the game and what makes it fun.


The issue seems to be that you hadn't bothered properly assigning skills so you have a random mismatch of abilities whereas what you're supposed to do is plan out what task each char will do and then give them only those abilities that work for that task. If you need to figure out what each skill does, that's what the early parts of the game where it's still relatively easy were meant for. Instead of switching it to easy which makes progress effortless you should have just sat down and looked into your abilities and gear.

As for your archer going in to mellee, there's some kind of auto setting that makes them keep away and just shoot I believe.

Correct, you need to open up the behaviour dropdown in the tactics screen and set your archers to "Ranged", which will tell the AI to move them away from melee attackers. Archers should also have Pinning Shot set to target enemies with melee weapons, and have Dirty Fighting set to be used when they are attacked by a melee attacker.

I think OP is having trouble understanding how all the systems work and interact with each other (which is understandable since the game doesn't explain itself that well). There's no other explanation for why he is having so much difficulty. The game is pretty easy on all but the hardest difficulty if you know how to set up your party (with Wynne's spells configured correctly, you can get by without even using healing poultices). Once you get the Tactics system working and get a handle on the pause and play, making it all work is a beautiful thing. However, it takes some time and some learning (tutorials and videos are the quickest way) to get on top of it. I've played DAO around 17 times, and it was about five or six playthroughs before I really understood how all of the mechanics worked.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

When I tried to micromanage the use of abilities I soon realized that only Morrigan even had enough of them to actually think of what to use. Alistair (I'm using him as sword & shield) seems to have 4 different versions of shield defense, and bugger me if I know what damn difference they have. It certainly doesn't help that the descriptions are like 8 lines of text when they could just be simple numbers. I'm playing a game, dammit, not reading a technical manual! Also, I kept using his aggro drawing ability, and still couldn't tell if it was doing what it was supposed to.

This is your problem. You don't have the right attitude to be able to enjoy these games. For me, sitting for hours going through all the skills meticulously and then planning out specifically which ones to get and which ones not to for a gameplan is half the fun of the game. Reading the descriptions isn't something contrary to playing a game. Playing games can be deep and complicated just as much as it can be anything else, so if you have an attitude of "learning and games are opposites" then you won't enjoy games where learning how to use all the skills and using this knowledge to create varied playstyles is the entire point of the game and what makes it fun.

Well I already get my fill of figuring out tactical combinations of abilities by playing 40k. But I'm not sure that explains it either. The word I would use to describe what doesn't jel with me about this game would be verbosity. Compared to Darkest Dungeon, which also leans heavily on tactical combat, DA:O just puts too much text where simple numbers would suffice. In DD I can at a glance see what benefits and disadvantages different abilities, quirks and trinkets have, check enemy stats, and ponder my chances of success. Since the ability selection is also limited, figuring out good synergies is much easier and quicker than going through an entire laundry list of abilities before even acquiring them. Dragon Age uses descriptive words and long explanations, both in lore and gameplay terms, instead. It's like the difference between older and newer editions of WH40k: in older editions wargear entries would explain the rules for gear as well as have flavor text to give them context, whereas later editions made a firm distinction between explaining the rules in one place, and the background info in another. I much prefer the latter, since it makes looking up rules during gameplay way faster.

This also applies to the dialogue too. It's not agonizingly drawn out, but still feels bloated. As Yahtzee said, the best game writing is succinct and punchy. DA:O's feels neither. The codex entries seem all at least 5 paragraphs long (I haven't even bothered to read them). Mind you, I'm not against the codex, but IMO a better option would probably have been splitting each entry in two and having double the amount of entries if they really needed all that text. The dialogue... well I'm already a broken record about how needlessly long each exchange feels. I'm also a broken record about saying I'm a broken record about saying how Witcher 3 seems to have genuinely ruined this kind of text-heavy retro style RPG for me. Since Witcher 3 has 7 years worth of graphics technology and the best facial and character animation in gaming history over DA:O, it can use non-verbal communication much more. The best example to illustrate is IMO this scene


Those simple, miniscule facial motions in the last 10 seconds convey so much more personality and emotion than anything I've yet come across in DA:O. Geralt's smirk and Yennefer's shift of the brow make the dialogue feel so much more real and keep the viewer's attention. Since DA:O doesn't have that, the character building needs to rely on dialogue more, and as a result the game needs more of it, which I have little patience for. The game has a sort of disjunct with the dialogue: since the facial animation is so stiff and bare bones, there's little of value for me to watch on screen. Instead I always watch the upper edge of the screen to read the text ahead of time and skip to the next line before the voice acting even finishes. As a result I don't remember character faces, and therefore the characters, because I'm not looking at them in the first place.

Now that I think about it, this was a problem I had with the first Witcher as well. The game's conversation ambitions simply exceeded its technical prowess, and we're left with stiff-faced characters awkwardly standing still no matter how tense the conversation might be. Since that game too had to rely on text and dialogue to convey any sort of personality (lacking any proper introductions to basically anyone didn't help either), I didn't get attached to any of them and just skimmed through the dialogue in the last chapter as fast as I could. The second game improved the character animation enough that I could actually get into the dialogue and listen to it instead of just reading it.

 

[DoPo]

Well I already get my fill of figuring out tactical combinations of abilities by playing 40k.

Ah, speaking of - I guess you noticed how The Fade in DA:O is basically The Warp from 40k, albeit a bit more benevolent. I'm fine with this - the game already takes a bunch of existing stuff anyway. I was disappointed, however, by how harsh the story and gameplay segregation was - mages were supposed to be very dangerous, and you do get to meet some spectacular mistakes throughout the game. Yet, in gameplay terms, any actual make that you meet is the epitome of reliability. There isn't a single thing that can backfire with their abilities. At most, if a spell calls for some sort of roll to resist, it might fail, but that's about it. But other than that, there is nothing Fade related.

What I found even worse was blood magic. OK, fine - when you take it up, you only get four abilities, as opposed to the various insidious powers that blood mages have according to the plot, but whatever. My real disappoinment was Wynne. I don't know if you met her in your game yet, but she's part of the mage's guild and can become your companion. She's very anti-blood magic (as expected from a mage) but you can still teach her that path and she says...absolutely nothing. She gets to fling blood magic around yet still explain how bad it is.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

snip

Dude, not cool. I mean, The Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time, and you are right, but it's just not fair to compare a game from 2009 to The Witcher 3. Look at how The Witcher 1 was compared to Dragon Age: Origins and you have a fairer comparison.

Now as far as Dragon Age goes, I enjoyed Origins a lot. I played through it multiple times. However, Dragon Age is a weird series because your entire enjoyment can depend on what kind of character you build. I enjoyed Origins the most as a simple human male warrior who chose to romance Morrigan. Every other playthrough was not as good as that one but they were OK. This one just felt like it's the most canon, if that makes any sense.

Now I'm gonna drop some knowledge about the other two games in case you want to play them some day.

I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 ONLY as a witty female rogue and I enjoyed Dragon Age Inquisition ONLY as a female mage elf. I could not get into the other two installments AT ALL with any of the other possibilities.

The reason why I enjoyed playing DA2 with female Hawke was a better voice actor that just gave Hawke a more believable personality. And considering some of the other members of your team, being a witty female was immensely enjoyable. Male actor is not bad, but he sounds too posh and like he's not really in the moment. He kinda sounds like a douche. FYI, female Hawke is voiced by Jo Wyatt (Ciri).

You are probably going to like Dragon Age 2 a lot more than Origins. It's less tactical, more streamlined because you don't have to worry about your team members as much as in Origins and the combat is a lot faster. It's also a smaller game with a more personal story as opposed to Bioware's traditional "saving the world" scenario.
Now check this: At the beginning of DA2, one of your siblings is going to die. If you choose warrior or rogue class, your sister who's a mage will survive. She's a pretty good character and her relationship with her sister Hawke is kind of awesome. If you choose to play as mage, the sister dies in the tutorial and the brother lives. But he is a very boring character with nothing to offer.

As for Dragon Age Inquisition, because of the story and one of the most important characters in Dragon Age lore, the only proper way to play that game IMO is with a female elf mage. Can't say more because that would be a spoiler.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Since this guy is playing a tone of Fantasy RPGs I dare him to play and beat:

The Ultima games
Might and Magic
Wizardry
Bard's Tale
Diablo's 1 and 2
Fallout 1 and 2
Nox
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (The Original Versions not the Remasters)
Revenant
Planescape Torment (Original version)
Arcanum of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura
Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (Again original version)
Throne of Darkness
Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity
Temple of Elemental Evi
Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition
Sacred Gold

 

[Kerg3927]

The reason why I enjoyed playing DA2 with female Hawke was a better voice actor that just gave Hawke a more believable personality. And considering some of the other members of your team, being a witty female was immensely enjoyable. Male actor is not bad, but he sounds too posh and like he's not really in the moment. He kinda sounds like a douche. FYI, female Hawke is voiced by Jo Wyatt (Ciri).

I kinda liked male Hawke. He grew on me.

One of positives about DA2 is that it gives you a "smartass" dialogue option. Every RPG should have that...

1) nice guy
2) bad guy
3) smartass

I'm a smartass in real life, so I liked it.

 

[DoPo]

Since this guy is playing a tone of Fantasy RPGs I dare him to play and beat:

Fallout 1 and 2

Wouldn't have counted that as a Fantasy RPG. Also, I probably wouldn't really consider Diablo the same genre as, say, Might and Magic.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I wish people wouldn't suggest games in different sub-genre's. 'Oh, you like Final Fantasy mainline titles, you should try a dungeon crawler like Diablo' ....because they play exactly the same? How about this, 'Oh you like Final Fantasy mainline titles, you should play Disgaea'.

Once though, I do want to try it for myself. When someone asks for games like I want to suggest Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Super Mario World. When I do it though, I won't actually be serious.

As for Dragon Age. I played it back in 2010 on PC and it was fine but all attempts to play it again recently have failed. I even picked up a cheap copy for the 360 so I could try and get a different experience from it but really, the game just isn't that good. Even back in the day people criticized for not giving the player a storage chest (Bioware finally added one), for selling DLC through an NPC (it was jarring and pulled you right out of the game world) and the fade (which I enjoyed in 2010). Even back then though and coming off of Oblivion, Dragon Age seemed needlessly limiting but that's the type of game it is and it's also why it's very hard to go back to. I also felt like the Tactics in this game were like a poor mans Gambits. The battle system does play a little like Final Fantasy 12, just isn't as polished or as fun IMO.

 

[jademunky]

Yes, you must keep going. Dragon Age: Origins is simply the greatest CRPG since Baldur's Gate II and Alistair one of the most lovable video game characters of all time.

 

[Kerg3927]

Even back then though and coming off of Oblivion, Dragon Age seemed needlessly limiting but that's the type of game it is and it's also why it's very hard to go back to.

I'm sure I'm in the minority among gamers these days, but I don't understand why a game that is not massive open world is considered "limiting" or even why "limiting" is a bad word. To me, limiting is a GREAT thing.

It's like the movie that was 3-4 hours long after they filmed it, but the final release was only 2 hours... the rest was left on the cutting room floor. What did they cut out? The crap. The filler. Which leads to a higher quality movie.

Would DAO have been a better game with an open world map 3 times as big, with the extra space filled with 100 fetch quests? 10 times as big? 300 fetch quests? Everyone seems to be trying to out-size each other these days.

And speaking of going back to games. I play relatively short, succinct games of good quality like Bioware made pre-DAI over and over. You know what games I never replay and never will? Games like DAI and TW3, that are so bloated and massive and full of filler that by the time you're finished with the slog you're so sick of it you never want to see that game boot up again.

Anyway, sorry, not attacking you. Just your opinion. Because it's the opposite of mine and it struck a nerve. I'm still sad over the massive open world turn that Bioware for some reason felt they needed to take with DAI and now MEA. The company has other problems, but that decision destroyed the company in my eyes. And I've played every Bioware game except Jade Empire. I used to be a Bioware fan boy. Not anymore.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Even back then though and coming off of Oblivion, Dragon Age seemed needlessly limiting but that's the type of game it is and it's also why it's very hard to go back to.

I'm sure I'm in the minority among gamers these days, but I don't understand why a game that is not massive open world is considered "limiting" or even why "limiting" is a bad word. To me, limiting is a GREAT thing.

It's like the movie that was 3-4 hours long after they filmed it, but the final release was only 2 hours... the rest was left on the cutting room floor. What did they cut out? The crap. The filler. Which leads to a higher quality movie.

Would DAO have been a better game with an open world map 3 times as big, with the extra space filled with 100 fetch quests? 10 times as big? 300 fetch quests? Everyone seems to be trying to out-size each other these days.

And speaking of going back to games. I play relatively short, succinct games of good quality like Bioware made pre-DAI over and over. You know what games I never replay and never will? Games like DAI and TW3, that are so bloated and massive and full of filler that by the time you're finished with the slog you're so sick of it you never want to see that game boot up again.

Anyway, sorry, not attacking you. Just your opinion. Because it's the opposite of mine and it struck a nerve. I'm still sad over the massive open world turn that Bioware for some reason felt they needed to take with DAI and now MEA. The company has other problems, but that decision destroyed the company in my eyes. And I've played every Bioware game except Jade Empire. I used to be a Bioware fan boy. Not anymore.

I should clarify my position the best I can. I prefer story driven linear RPG's which is why I prefer the Final Fantasy series (can't stand 15 though). I am not really a fan of open world games and these days it seems like their are a million of them but Morrowind and Oblivion are the exceptions for me. Morrowind was the gateway drug for me and open world games. Now the reason I compare Dragon Age to Oblivion is because it's a side quest driven game and from that type of game, I expect more freedom and I really dislike Dragon Age's limited inventory. Now I know the Bethesda games I mentioned have a limited inventory but they also make it much easier to store extra loot. I like that encumbrance is affected by strength and thus can be raised easily while with Dragon Age, you have to buy the backpacks and you can't really get them any earlier than the story permits.

Now I know people say that Bioware's games are largely about story but they are not as story driven as some of the more linear JRPG's that I have played and enjoyed. Anyway, when it comes to side quests, I prefer them to be few and directly related to the story. Something like a quest to get Cloud's ultimate limit break or quest to save Lucca's mother from losing her leg. Fetch and escort quests are the worst of the worst but they are so common in side quest driven games.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

snip

Dude, not cool. I mean, The Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time, and you are right, but it's just not fair to compare a game from 2009 to The Witcher 3. Look at how The Witcher 1 was compared to Dragon Age: Origins and you have a fairer comparison.

Oh, I didn't mean to say "DA:O is worse because it doesn't have the Witcher 3's graphics". The point was to specifically illustrate that I simply can't judge Dragon Age by its 2008 merits, because Witcher 3 has such overwhelming superiority in its graphics that it genuinely affected how engaging the conversations felt. And going back to stiff NPCs standing in place after Witcher 3's incredibly lively animation is just too much of a leap since the game mostly failed to grab me otherwise. Kind of like how Oblivion's conversations are just massively distracting instead of building any kind of immersion.

Yes, you must keep going. Dragon Age: Origins is simply the greatest CRPG since Baldur's Gate II and Alistair one of the most lovable video game characters of all time.

I guess this whole genre just isn't for me. Like I said, I enjoyed the roleplaying element (stealing from refugees in Lothering felt particularly fitting for my character) and the storytelling was... eh, nice, but the game felt like 70% combat and 30% of the stuff I actually liked. I've already illustrated my reasons for disliking the game in no small detail. When it comes to party-based combat systems, I'd say either go all in or not at all: make it either entirely turn-based, or make the partner AI good enough that you can play with a single character at a time without having to worry about the others. DA:O's system just felt maddening to me.

 

[Kerg3927]

Even back then though and coming off of Oblivion, Dragon Age seemed needlessly limiting but that's the type of game it is and it's also why it's very hard to go back to.

I'm sure I'm in the minority among gamers these days, but I don't understand why a game that is not massive open world is considered "limiting" or even why "limiting" is a bad word. To me, limiting is a GREAT thing.

It's like the movie that was 3-4 hours long after they filmed it, but the final release was only 2 hours... the rest was left on the cutting room floor. What did they cut out? The crap. The filler. Which leads to a higher quality movie.

Would DAO have been a better game with an open world map 3 times as big, with the extra space filled with 100 fetch quests? 10 times as big? 300 fetch quests? Everyone seems to be trying to out-size each other these days.

And speaking of going back to games. I play relatively short, succinct games of good quality like Bioware made pre-DAI over and over. You know what games I never replay and never will? Games like DAI and TW3, that are so bloated and massive and full of filler that by the time you're finished with the slog you're so sick of it you never want to see that game boot up again.

Anyway, sorry, not attacking you. Just your opinion. Because it's the opposite of mine and it struck a nerve. I'm still sad over the massive open world turn that Bioware for some reason felt they needed to take with DAI and now MEA. The company has other problems, but that decision destroyed the company in my eyes. And I've played every Bioware game except Jade Empire. I used to be a Bioware fan boy. Not anymore.

I should clarify my position the best I can. I prefer story driven linear RPG's which is why I prefer the Final Fantasy series (can't stand 15 though). I am not really a fan of open world games and these days it seems like their are a million of them but Morrowind and Oblivion are the exceptions for me. Morrowind was the gateway drug for me and open world games. Now the reason I compare Dragon Age to Oblivion is because it's a side quest driven game and from that type of game, I expect more freedom and I really dislike Dragon Age's limited inventory. Now I know the Bethesda games I mentioned have a limited inventory but they also make it much easier to store extra loot. I like that encumbrance is affected by strength and thus can be raised easily while with Dragon Age, you have to buy the backpacks and you can't really get them any earlier than the story permits.

Now I know people say that Bioware's games are largely about story but they are not as story driven as some of the more linear JRPG's that I have played and enjoyed. Anyway, when it comes to side quests, I prefer them to be few and directly related to the story. Something like a quest to get Cloud's ultimate limit break or quest to save Lucca's mother from losing her leg. Fetch and escort quests are the worst of the worst but they are so common in side quest driven games.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I saw Oblivion and thought you were saying DAO should be more open world.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

snip

Dude, not cool. I mean, The Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time, and you are right, but it's just not fair to compare a game from 2009 to The Witcher 3. Look at how The Witcher 1 was compared to Dragon Age: Origins and you have a fairer comparison.

Oh, I didn't mean to say "DA:O is worse because it doesn't have the Witcher 3's graphics". The point was to specifically illustrate that I simply can't judge Dragon Age by its 2008 merits, because Witcher 3 has such overwhelming superiority in its graphics that it genuinely affected how engaging the conversations felt. And going back to stiff NPCs standing in place after Witcher 3's incredibly lively animation is just too much of a leap since the game mostly failed to grab me otherwise. Kind of like how Oblivion's conversations are just massively distracting instead of building any kind of immersion.

Yes, you must keep going. Dragon Age: Origins is simply the greatest CRPG since Baldur's Gate II and Alistair one of the most lovable video game characters of all time.

I guess this whole genre just isn't for me. Like I said, I enjoyed the roleplaying element (stealing from refugees in Lothering felt particularly fitting for my character) and the storytelling was... eh, nice, but the game felt like 70% combat and 30% of the stuff I actually liked. I've already illustrated my reasons for disliking the game in no small detail. When it comes to party-based combat systems, I'd say either go all in or not at all: make it either entirely turn-based, or make the partner AI good enough that you can play with a single character at a time without having to worry about the others. DA:O's system just felt maddening to me.

Why are you letting the AI Tactics system do the work for your party members? Are you playing this game on PC because you can just fully control the charcaters like how you would a RTS game. Its why it gave you a pause feature for you to take command.

I never used the Tactics system on PC because I had that amount of control of the party members.

How are you struggling with this system is beyond me.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Since this guy is playing a tone of Fantasy RPGs I dare him to play and beat:

Fallout 1 and 2

Wouldn't have counted that as a Fantasy RPG. Also, I probably wouldn't really consider Diablo the same genre as, say, Might and Magic.

Regardless I mean Fantasy RPGs of any genre.

And Fallout 1 and 2 sort of slipped off the tounge, but Fallout 1 and 2 is so damn good regardless.