Dragon Age: Origins: Why Put This Shit In?

[GloatingSwine]

I cannot recall one moment in the entire Baldur's Gate series (or Planetscape: Torment, or the Icewind Dale series, for that matter) where they put you through what I described. Dungeons were shorter and fights were varied.

Firewind *twitch* Ruins. Kobold *twitch* Commandos.

But yes, the dungeon design in Dragon Age is really generic.

 

[mezmerizer02]

Can't say I've ever played an RPG where there were lots of different enemies in 1 area besides FF games. real-time RPG's usually keep the same characters for 3 reasons:

1)to let the player know they are in the right or wrong place

2) To let them know which area they are in so they can decide if they need to explore a different zone

3) drops from a certain creature usually require mass killings for the item drop

 

[Starke]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

Listen to this guy, he's a smart cookie.

Seriously? Are you joking or what? RPG's have always been about the grind.

I don't know. I replayed Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast while I waited for Dragon Age to arrive in the mail. The game is pretty long and does not dole out instant gratification but there is very little grind.

I think the reliance on grind is a MMORPG inspired thing and if there is one thing I dislike about DAO it's the MMORPG feel. Thank goodness that you can disable quest markers.

The closest to that kind of grind in BG was Durlag's Tower but there at least was a lot of different enemies.

Temple mentioned by OP was just about making me insane. Every time I thought it was finally over it just threw a new load of boring crap in my face. There is a difference between a dungeon crawl and an annoying grind fest. And I feel that DAO has a bit too much of the latter. Baldur's Gate it surely is not.

Well, and to be fair, Durlag's Tower was supposed to be grind. It was added in as a bonus level of hell dungeon that was supposed to produce TPKs and give experienced players some real challenge. As opposed to whatever the hell they were aiming for here.

I was looking for the fights to grind some EXP, so it wasn't a big problem for me, though they still coulda used more monster types.

The two temples/dungeons, you talking about the temple and the guardians you can walk past before that?

There is no variety in weapons or loot at all in Dragon Age =/

Totally agree, armor enchantments might've added some variety and maybe pieces upgradeable with skills or rewards

I think the first warning sign was how limited the drop system in the flash game was, but I told myself that it's a flash game its not supposed to be that deep. And yet... it has a more developed looting system than the final game. WTF!?

Honestly if there's a theme to Dragon Age it's unfinished with padding. The skill system is bland. The inventory system is yawn inducing. The drops are boring as hell. The enemies are dull and repetative. The enemies schizophrenically switch between TPKs and too weak to do real damage. The enemies are dull and repetitive. The story is dull and repetative. The enemies are dull and... okay, I'm done with that joke.

But seriously, this isn't dark fantisy. The Witcher was dark(er) fantisy (and not because they used fuck in every eigth dialog.) Hell, Mass Effect was darker than this. All this is is Tolken with stipling.

The influence system reaks of "we can haz Obsidian 2". The gift system in Fable was ammusing and worked because it fit the campy flavor. Here? No. That's like saying you're going to make a film noir and then adding Betty Boop to it (for no goddamn reason).

And finally, the hell people, you've been working on this for all these years, and this was what turns out?

*Happy Bark*

ENCHANTMENT!

 

[VanQ]

Ummm, so why play RPG? RPGs are mostly known for their level grinding. I don't think there would ever be an RPG which can generate the possibilities of 1000 types of enemies.

I would invest everything I own for such a game.

 

[Indiscrimi]

Ummm, so why play RPG? RPGs are mostly known for their level grinding. I don't think there would ever be an RPG which can generate the possibilities of 1000 types of enemies.

Hmm well with the Borderlands gun-creating engine, it could be very possible to have a game that has randomly generated baddies.

That would be totally awesome.

That would be totally awesome, but as anyone who has played Borderlands will know, on occasion you'll get a ridiculously over-powered gun. What if that happened with an enemy? What if you couldn't progress through the story because of it?

And let us not forget that even Borderlands has grind in it. Sort of the nature of the beast, I'm afraid.

 

[squid5580]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

Now, now. There are RPGs and then there are RPGs. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a survival RPG where pretty much every enemy in the entire game appears ONCE and NEVER respawns. You're always working forwards and hardly ever revisiting the same places. The battle system is fast, fluid and strategic, but also legitimately difficult to master.

Granted, it's rather unique in the genre, but there are other RPGs which also eschew conventional RPG design decisions.

Oh, so you're the other guy who bought that game...

No that was me . A part of me died when I put in that disc. Now whenever I play a bad game I just say to myself "well it isn't BOF Dragon Quarter" and the game doesn't feel so bad.

 

[Biek]

*Happy Bark*

*Pet Dogmeat*

Dogmeat, eh?

I named him Duncan, after... well, Duncan. And I thought it made a fitting dog name.

I named him Biorr. Automatically making him the coolest character in the game.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

Listen to this guy, he's a smart cookie.

Seriously? Are you joking or what? RPG's have always been about the grind.

I don't know. I replayed Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast while I waited for Dragon Age to arrive in the mail. The game is pretty long and does not dole out instant gratification but there is very little grind.

I think the reliance on grind is a MMORPG inspired thing and if there is one thing I dislike about DAO it's the MMORPG feel. Thank goodness that you can disable quest markers.

The closest to that kind of grind in BG was Durlag's Tower but there at least was a lot of different enemies.

Temple mentioned by OP was just about making me insane. Every time I thought it was finally over it just threw a new load of boring crap in my face. There is a difference between a dungeon crawl and an annoying grind fest. And I feel that DAO has a bit too much of the latter. Baldur's Gate it surely is not.

Well, and to be fair, Durlag's Tower was supposed to be grind. It was added in as a bonus level of hell dungeon that was supposed to produce TPKs and give experienced players some real challenge. As opposed to whatever the hell they were aiming for here.

Oh, I agree. While Durlag's Tower was insanely hard, at least for me, it wasn't an integral part of the main story. It was an option if you felt like grinding some XP and levelling your party. And it worked well for that. I still maintain that the main game was pretty grind free. There is a difference between dungeon crawl and grind.
Every time I go further on a main quest in DAO I think 'Aw, man, now I'm in for hours of killing the same enemy group over and over again.' I didn't have that with either of the BG games.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Luckily fights don't work like that in DAO. Now if you mentioned Disgaea where you not only have to grind to level characters but grind to level their items as well, maybe you'd have an argument.

Either that or you have ADD like crazy and can't stand the same thing for more than 2 seconds.

 

[hermes]

Ummm, so why play RPG? RPGs are mostly known for their level grinding. I don't think there would ever be an RPG which can generate the possibilities of 1000 types of enemies.

Hmm well with the Borderlands gun-creating engine, it could be very possible to have a game that has randomly generated baddies.

That would be totally awesome.

Like Martigen's Monstre Mod (MMM) for Fallout 3? Like, different variants of certain models or completely different creations?

Personally, I think they should work on enemy generation scripts that can churn out random unique encounters with AI script-based instances. In a sense, a script that generates heavily-script based scenarios randomly - is this impossible?

I don't know if it is possible, but it does sound cool... at least for side-quests or random exploration sites. Of course, that would make content (like voice-over) unmanageable...

The easiest is to have slots to complete and several hundred possible changes: "Go get __, which we need to rescue __ from the claws of __"

 

[Firia]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

Listen to this guy, he's a smart cookie.

Seriously? Are you joking or what? RPG's have always been about the grind.

MMOs are all about the grind. A proper RPG is about the story.

I kind of know what the OP is talking about. I jumped to a town, and wiped out a fairly large "abandoned" building full of blood mages. It was like, the same 3 baddies over and over and over again. But it didn't bother me. I've noticed several people like to micromanage their people by going into the sub-menu alot, rather than letting tactics handle everything. This can really drag a fight out. I just let my well thought out tactics management do the work for me (I'm an elf-mage, all about party buffs), and rush room to room as some kind of murder-squad. Works pretty well for me (hard mode).

So in my case, three fights then dungeon-over would be awful. But since battles are fast, and bloody for me, a floor full of confrontations would be comparitivly the same. 3 floors of that with little to vary things would be tiring, I will admit.

When I went (back) to the [location], there were 3 or 4 monsters that I'd always fight. I will admit that it'd be nice if there was more variety included in the fights. However, specialized battles as they are do allow you to learn your foe, and adjust accordingly.

 

[Starke]

I kind of know what the OP is talking about. I jumped to a town, and wiped out a fairly large "abandoned" building full of blood mages. It was like, the same 3 baddies over and over and over again. But it didn't bother me. I've noticed several people like to micromanage their people by going into the sub-menu alot, rather than letting tactics handle everything. This can really drag a fight out. I just let my well thought out tactics management do the work for me (I'm an elf-mage, all about party buffs), and rush room to room as some kind of murder-squad. Works pretty well for me (hard mode).

So in my case, three fights then dungeon-over would be awful. But since battles are fast, and bloody for me, a floor full of confrontations would be comparitivly the same. 3 floors of that with little to vary things would be tiring, I will admit.

When I went (back) to the [location], there were 3 or 4 monsters that I'd always fight. I will admit that it'd be nice if there was more variety included in the fights. However, specialized battles as they are do allow you to learn your foe, and adjust accordingly.

It's really jarring when you compair it to Neverwinter Nights 2, where, yeah, they brought a rediculous number of assassins to kill this one guy, but usually the numbers do seem more in keeping with sanity. This is more Diabloish than a hard core RPG.

Hell the original Fallout didn't have many protracted dungeons. (Even Shady Sands Radscorpion den was only about a dozen sorpions total, and if you had any explosives you could just seal the place, making the entire area was 100% optional.) Though if this was because the turn based combat would let you really drag out a single encounter or not, I don't know.

I don't know if it is possible, but it does sound cool... at least for side-quests or random exploration sites. Of course, that would make content (like voice-over) unmanageable...

The easiest is to have slots to complete and several hundred possible changes: "Go get _William Shatner's Toupe_, which we need to rescue _your pants_ from the claws of _Abe Vigoda_"

Honestly, I suspect we'll end up with quality proceedurally generated voices in the next few years or so, though. Given the importance of voice work in gmaes these days.

 

[orangebandguy]

One word:

Oblivion.

Fight the same five monsters and enemies for DAYS.

I'm considering buying that game, since I loved Fallout 3 so much.

I hope there's more to it than that :/

 

[Archetypal_Maniac]

I think this grind problem is really a product of the largely linear nature of Dragon Age: Origins and some other Bioware games. In an RPG, you do need a certain amount of grind in order to create XP and level up. The other way to do it is have xp doled out solely on a quest-based basis (VtM:B) which can also work fine, but few games do it.

I think another system that could be more used is the seperate skills leveling, instead of giving you a pool of XP, then adding to whatever abilities you like, you are awarded experience in the different choices you make. For example if I use a sword it will improve my ability with swords and also unlock new abilities to use with that weapon type. This can be applied to armour, the use of in game resources and even the dialogue choices. However RPG's tend to shy away from this and go with the safer option that has engrossed so many WoW players.

 

[slipknot4]

You are playing an RPG, you receive what you get and paid for. A RPG. The very essence of level grinding and same monsters all the time

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

Essentially this. Get over it.

Ummm, so why play RPG? RPGs are mostly known for their level grinding. I don't think there would ever be an RPG which can generate the possibilities of 1000 types of enemies.

'Cause if they did the system requirements would be higher then that of Crysis, plus they're usually not given a budget big enough for that.

 

[SAMURAJ]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

WTF, MW2-wot kind of idiot are you ????

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

You purchased an rpg and expected instant gratification? Go buy MW2.

I bought Bioware RPG that claimed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and I expected to be that. All good things come to an end, I guess, including great RPG tradition.

I don't want to burst your bubble, but I cannot possibly see what would lead you to believe the spiritual sucessor to a D&D based game was going to lead to a world chaning paradigm shift. The only real difference I see is the system in Baldur's Gate made a bit more sense to me. I was able to figure out relatively easily what effect a stat would have and whatnot (generally a negative THAC0 is considered pretty good), but in DA:O I have found that I don't really know what a number means. Sure I know a higher attack value is better but I'm never able to figure out just what kind of value I ought to shoot for. Is 100 a good value? Is 150? Is the difference in hit rate linear?

There's actually a few things that do annoy me. The almost complete lack of elemental resist gear for example means mages will always kick your face in. Not really having a clue what kind of damage a monster will sling means there is no pre-planning for this sort of jazz - the best you can hope for high mental and physical resists so you don't get knocked down. The combat system is robust enough to keep me entertained but sometimes the amount of micromanaging you have to do is absurd. If I wanted to keep my archer primed to take out any mages that appeared I'd have to turn off her tactics because she would gleefully use all her stamina in the opening seconds of a battle and have nothing left to silence the most lethal threat. Conversely, your healer and tank can both be left almost entirely on auto-pilot. You can't trust a mage to fire an AOE spell (which is the majority of the spells you'll probably WANT to use) because they'll blast the party, your archers constantly decide it's better to run into melee combat rather than stick with the bow even though they do more damage and have most of their skills dumped into that tree, rogues are incapable of purposefully maneuvering to the rear of an opponent. If the tactics system was any worse (i.e. I had to manage my healer and tank as closely as the people who sling the pain), I'd just opt for a game that was entirely turn based instead of having to pause the game ever 3 seconds.