Poll: DA:O... why is this better than DA2 again?

[MetallicaRulez0]

IMPORTANT NOTE: This thread is not about which game you prefer between DA:O and DA2. There's 100 threads about that very subject on the forums already, go to one of those. This thread is specifically about the combat and gameplay, nothing else. Thanks.

So I just finished a few playthroughs of Dragon Age 2 on PC, and enjoyed them immensely. I had originally played Origins on 360, and it was good, not great in my opinion. I found a deal online for DA:O Ultimate Edition that was 50% off, and decided I'd try it out on the supposedly vastly superior PC version.

... wow, am I disappointed. The game is just so darn slow and clunky compared to the sequel. I don't really remember if it was this bad on 360, but I find Origins on PC to have one of, if not the worst combat experiences I have ever played. I understand that it's meant to be a little slow, more old school and tactical, but I think it represents the absolute extreme of that idea. It's the ArmA2 of RPGs, if you will.

When I played Dragon Age 2, it was fast, fluid, FUN, and very responsive. DA:O feels like the opposite of that. Your character shifts awkwardly attempting to get into melee range, your abilities basically don't scale at all from the beginning of the game to the end, and the whole thing just feels clunky, for lack of a better description.

Dragon Age 2 was far from a perfect game. The story was downright bad and the scenery got very repetitive, but I at least had fun during actual gameplay in DA2. In Origins I have more fun in conversations than I do in combat, and that just seems very backwards to me.

Has anyone else gone back to Origins after playing DA2 and had a hard time adjusting and/or enjoying the combat gameplay in DA:O?

 

[Bobbity]

I had DA:O on both console and pc - I'm still not totally sure what happened there - and it was infinitely better on pc. Even so, the combat was still painful. The combat in DA2 is, imo, far more interesting, although I do miss some of the other features that got the cut

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well if you really can't see the glaring differences... honestly I can't help you.

But I do wonder what the point of that poll was?

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Well if you really can't see the glaring differences... honestly I can't help you.

But I do wonder what the point of that poll was?

Obviously I see the differences, that's why I made this thread!

The point of the poll is to get an idea of just how many people prefer the new faster combat in DA2, since SO many people seem to be bitching and moaning about how bad DA2 is on these boards. Some of them specifically state it's because the combat has changed so much, and it's my opinion that the combat has changed for the better.

 

[brumley53]

I hated Origins slow combat, it was just so bland and boring it was tactical but you had to tell every character everything to do or else he'd stand there getting smacked in the face. I haven't played DA2 but it seemed like only a slight improvement and I dont have enough money to buy it.

 

[Mr Thin]

Having played through DA:O twice and the demo of DA2 three times (all of this on PC), I can safely say I prefer the combat of the second game.

The second play-through of DA:O was after I played the DA2 demo (so quite recently). I experience no difficulty whatsoever in going back to the old combat system; I just didn't enjoy it as much.

 

[tzimize]

Well if you really can't see the glaring differences... honestly I can't help you.

But I do wonder what the point of that poll was?

Obviously I see the differences, that's why I made this thread!

The point of the poll is to get an idea of just how many people prefer the new faster combat in DA2, since SO many people seem to be bitching and moaning about how bad DA2 is on these boards. Some of them specifically state it's because the combat has changed so much, and it's my opinion that the combat has changed for the better.

There are mainly two (maybe 3) things that make DA2 VASTLY inferior imo.

1: Conversations are AWFUL compared to the first. The first DA had extremely interesting conversation choices. DA2 adopted MEs conversation wheel (which works in ME but was terrible in DA).

2: Locales were boring as hell, Kirkwall was nondescript and unexciting. And thats the only place that exist in DA2.

3: Story is unengaging and dull. I have to fight to simply finish the game, DA:O was an epic from start to finish.

Thank god I borrowed the game to play it, if I paid money for this garbage I'd feel like a moron.

 

[Mr Thin]

you had to tell every character everything to do or else he'd stand there getting smacked in the face

No, you didn't, that was the reason for the existence of the tactics system, a system which I, for one, thought was a brilliant idea that I've never seen in any other game, and made playing with allies much more interesting.

 

[brumley53]

you had to tell every character everything to do or else he'd stand there getting smacked in the face

No, you didn't, that was the reason for the existence of the tactics system, a system which I, for one, thought was a brilliant idea that I've never seen in any other game, and made playing with allies much more interesting.

I tried the tactics system but the amount of menus sub menus and all the other crap confused me, and half the time they would go to do something the tactic told them to, then I would tell them to do something else more important but after about two seconds they would go back to what the tactics menu said. maybe I just didnt get far enough in the game, I got up to the ogre at the top of the tower just after you become a grey warden, and that was a ***** because I had to get alistair to kite the ogre whilst telling my mage to shoot the ogre, but if I didnt tell alistair where to go every half a second the ogre would lock on and hit him.

 

[Jennacide]

Since I'm jumping back and forth between the two games now, literally, I can say a couple keen things to note.

The obvious of course is the combat in DA2 is simply more enjoyable. It's not as tactics based, but DAO didn't need much tactics either except on Nightmare. And DAO has the bad habit of shoehorning you into certain characters. Without a respec pot mod, did anyone actually use Sten or Ohgren? I think very few, if any. Which is sad, cause they are great characters. (Using both right now, used respec mod to make Ohgren a Spirit Archer, and Sten a DW tank)

DA2 pros:
Load times are sub 3 seconds, instead of 30 seconds and higher.
Poison and bombs are handled way better.
Quickloot/quicktarget key! (it's R if you hadn't figured it out yet)
Overall more likeable party members. (Though I miss Shale)

DAO pros:
Better environments.
Magic required my thoughtful usage.
There was more than ONE FUCKING HEAL SPELL. (Yes, I know Anders has the second, but fuck Anders)
Quests actually felt like quests. None of that 'find random item, turn into to random idiot' shit.

Regardless of all the bitching about DA2, it's still a decent game. It's nowhere near perfect, but it doesn't deserve all the stupidity being flung it's way. Still better than 90% of the RPGs we've been thrown since DAO.

 

[Silent Biohazard Solid]

The only good thing about the combat in DAO was that it was good when I was feeling lazy. Just click on the enemy and let my guy fight, while I eat a sandwich or something.
Still, I'd rather actually be in the action. It was a lot of fun on DA2.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well if you really can't see the glaring differences... honestly I can't help you.

But I do wonder what the point of that poll was?

Obviously I see the differences, that's why I made this thread!

The point of the poll is to get an idea of just how many people prefer the new faster combat in DA2, since SO many people seem to be bitching and moaning about how bad DA2 is on these boards. Some of them specifically state it's because the combat has changed so much, and it's my opinion that the combat has changed for the better.

The combat is a mere drop in the sea of changes, and it's hard to vote on a pole where I can hardly agree on any of the predetermined "facts".

DA2 combat might have felt faster, but due to the randomly spawning enemies during fights the whole thing dragged on for ages, and the tactics on nightmare mode were about the same but yet again drowned in the infinite spawning hordes, so you had to rinse and repeat until it all felt like a grindathon.
I can't say DA:O had much more tactics since they took out the real variety of skills/spells that old RPGs did so well, calling that old school is a long shot.

But RPG's were always lacking in the combat department which is ok since there is that huge story, and world to discover, interesting people to meet,... oh ya DA2 hasnt got much of that.
You are a city rat who buys his mom a house, all the rest of the overarching story only comes from DA:O, there you get to know the races and their culture, there you see the actual enemy, and there you are the world savior against all odds.

 

[Royta]

Can't decide. The combat was much more fun on DA2 and I liked the way you speced your characters more (also each character having their own tree was a good idea). But the litteral amount of 5 dungeons, more backtracking then metroid will ever do because every dungeon is the same and a pretty terrible plot...I can't choose.

 

[Trolldor]

Sidequests alone.
The sideboards had their own stories, the characters had their own epic and well developed histories.

DA2 was small. I can understand wanting to make it less epic, but does that also mean that none of the characters have any real back history?

 

[SkillOverKill]

Dragon Age 2 is the best RPG combat system ever: by a significant margin.

The biggest difference I think you struggle with between the two combat system is:
a) obviously the same studio knows how to improve on their previous work and make it more fun and less buggy,
b) the tactics system in DA2 automatically updates itself with new behaviour based on the abilities you choose, in Dragon Age 1 this is not really the case - if you aren't writing your own tactics in DA1 your characters act like idiots - if you are however you'll see a much much better reaction from them and will see where the combat systems in DA2 came from

Someone mentioned tactics in DA:O - actually they have a long line back through early PC RPG's, most notably the Black Isle ones like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.

The reason people like DA:O so much (and consequently disapprove of DA2) is that it DA:O had a fantastic storyline right from the start that only became better as the game went on, simply put it is one of the most immersive cultures / environments and stories in any game. Dragon Age 2's story is slow and uninteresting for the first two acts, and it picks up dramatically after that - but DA:2 falls far short of DA:O's story and world (little impact from conversation choices, one city about the size of Denerim - maybe smaller even).

DA:2 does a ton of stuff very right - the combat being a prime example, and we're all ravenous for anything more of that world - but it's not really a logical successor to DA:O - that's what's bugging people. DA:O is similar to Baldur's Gate, DA:2 is closer to Bioshock - that's hardly an insult - but it's not what was expected.

Edit: I should also mention the sense of being ripped off. This is achieved through two effects in DA:2 - DA:O has a huge world each with mostly unique quests and areas. Dragon Age 2 constantly reuses the same zones over and over and over. When you go from having like what 10 towns/cities in Dragon Age 1 to having a single town smaller than Denerim in DA2, and having to constantly battle back and forth down the same road - that annoys people - alot.

It comes down to little things that aggravate people the most. The combat system in DA2 was way more fun and tactical - but in DA1 it was highly strategic - this is both abilities and combos and endless waves of mobs spawning in 2 that made it impossible to predict whether to use that big cooldown now to ensure your teammate doesnt die - or to wait incase you get a huge wave of adds spawn all around you a second later and you would be better risking them now to protect everyone in the future - losing that knowledge feels cheap and patronizingly simplistic.

 

[scw55]

Well so far it's 50-50.

I prefer the gameplay of 2.
I find the story equally strong in 1 as it was in 2. They were different. 1 was Good Vs Evil. 2 was Grey Vs Grey.
The story of 1 was established immediatly, 2 only got going in the later acts, prior was "pissing around".
Moral choices in 1 was black and white. In 2 is was more ambiguous.
Sex scenes in 1 was better. 2 it was implied.
People complained about the sex scenes in 1. People complained about the sex scenes in 2 for a different reason.
Character animation in dialogue scenes was more convincing in 2 than 1, but to be honest, I was reading the subtitles so didn't really care.
I did like the voice of my character in 2, however 1 did let me "imagine" the voice, though, the dialogue scenes just felt like I was forced through them. I'd skip scenes when I've read the line.
You could choose from 1 of 3 races in 1, but stuck with stinky human in 2.
The customization for human was alot more deep in 2 than 1.
Storyline of 2 was linear. Storyline of 1 was wierd linear then big buldge then linear again. It was still linear in 1, it just hid the fact by letting you "choose the order in which you continued".
Alot of the envirments in 1 were unique, 2 copy and pasted alot.
Usually what you saw on the battlefield is what you had to kill, no annoying randomly spawning waves of mobs like there was in 2.

I would write more but I'm getting bored.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

But RPG's were always lacking in the combat department which is ok since there is that huge story, and world to discover, interesting people to meet...

Why is this acceptable, though? Doesn't gameplay come before all else? I completely agree that story in games is extremely important, and DA2 had a mediocre story at best, particularly the first half of the game. However, can a good story make up for terrible gameplay? Is it acceptable to have poor gameplay if you have a good story?

I think the answer is no. Gameplay is the reason most of us play games. I love a good story, but if the gameplay falls flat, I'm simply not interested.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This thread is not about which game you prefer between DA:O and DA2. There's 100 threads about that very subject on the forums already, go to one of those. This thread is specifically about the combat and gameplay, nothing else. Thanks.

 

[Smooth Operator]

But RPG's were always lacking in the combat department which is ok since there is that huge story, and world to discover, interesting people to meet...

Why is this acceptable, though? Doesn't gameplay come before all else? I completely agree that story in games is extremely important, and DA2 had a mediocre story at best, particularly the first half of the game. However, can a good story make up for terrible gameplay? Is it acceptable to have poor gameplay if you have a good story?

I think the answer is no. Gameplay is the reason most of us play games. I love a good story, but if the gameplay falls flat, I'm simply not interested.

It's acceptable because of the story/world, there are plenty of hack and slash games that do the combat 10x better, polished to all hell, but their stories are poor (see GoW).
Yes I would love it if games had it all, but that is really really hard to do, so they should do one thing really well, that will give me satisfaction and bring me back for more.
DA2 just does a little of everything and ends up being nowhere.

 

[health-bar]

I really hate the art in DA2

from what i got from the demo DA2 has a more involved combat and increased flow but the art design in DA:O was superior imo.

 

[Candidus]

The problems with DA:O's combat go way further than the pace, which I personally enjoyed.

DA:O's combat would have been perfect if a little more work had gone into pathing and mechanics, while a LOT more work went into the animations.

I prefer the *look* of DA2's combat, but I just can't say that I enjoyed the game more. It was multiplatform with an eye to consoles first, so it is as ugly as hell- look at those armour textures straight from 2002! It was badly written, especially the work of that game-hating Ox woman who turned Anders into Edward Cullen ("I can't control it, I'll hurt you *sniff*")...

Bah. I have to vote DA:O on this one. It's nowhere near as good as Baldur's Gate 2 was, but it's closer to the mark than DA2, which I regret purchasing a little bit.