Poll: Dragon Age 2 Demo Impressions
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I honestly didn't like it very much on my pc, if my xbox didn't RROD i would download it and give it a shot.
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Just beat it as a mage. First thing I noticed you can't seem to target specific people with area spells anymore. Great, because timing those things was always great fun. Heal has a long cooldown, but I think this is the first time I've ever picked heal, so maybe it was always long.
There is a loot all hotkey *hallelujah* and combat feels faster. Out of game cutscenes are LOUD and in game cutscenes need breaks to load
Dialog wheel is still up for pussy and down for asshole, but the little symbols changed when I made a choice so maybe it won't always be that obvious. It won't, but I can hope. I'll play it as a rogue again later
There is a loot all hotkey *hallelujah* and combat feels faster. Out of game cutscenes are LOUD and in game cutscenes need breaks to load
Dialog wheel is still up for pussy and down for asshole, but the little symbols changed when I made a choice so maybe it won't always be that obvious. It won't, but I can hope. I'll play it as a rogue again later
Love it. I really need to finish DA:O before March 8th.
My only question is why did they change Flemeth's appearance if it's set in the same time as the first game? Continuity is nice.
My only question is why did they change Flemeth's appearance if it's set in the same time as the first game? Continuity is nice.
No, you're right. I tend to play healers [or the closest thing to them; I was even a Medic in Mass Effect, foolish person that I am] in this type of game, and found the cooldown in the demo to be long enough that it can only realistically be used once or twice per battle. A far cry from DA:O.Fr said:
But then, I only realised healing potions were available on my third playthrough [it crashed twice near the end], so...
So basically, your argument is l2p? Well said my friend, it's both deep and informative!Madkipz said:
In my original post I stated that I had a funky group setup, it was centered around freezing targets and shattering them - which worked surprisingly well, but made my group squishy and reliant on cooldowns.
That being said, again, having to pause the game, load up heals, and redirect my casters, constantly was tedious and boring in a 40hr RPG, in my opinion. Although, you maybe right I might need to l2p, I did have friends that played both melee(rogue&guardian) classes, and they seemed to have the same problem with constantly having to pause. . . perhaps you, my friend, are a gaming gaawd who only needs to scoff at the spacebar in order to breeze through the game.
I haven't played the DA2 demo yet, so I don't know how much they shifted it towards action, but I did enjoy the combat changes in ME2. So long as it's still a great story, and an epic-feeling world I should probably still enjoy the game. . .Until I get my hands on Witcher 2.
Yeah, tha analogy is perfect and in no way a crass, ham-handed attempt at... well anything. Good job.Cuy said:
So... people keep saying this is dumbed down. Anyone wanna clue me in as to... how? As far as I can tell here are the changes to the gameplay:
1) You almost always hit, and bonus' to your hit chance are modified by enemy rank and level
2) The spell tree is slimmer (Potentially good since there were so many useless spells before)
3) Combat is a bit quicker. Noticed that your basic enemies died really fast. This could be an early game thing, but I somehow feel it will be the norm.
4) Flanking gives bonus damage primarily instead of bonus to hit primarily. (Latter may become more relevant vs bosses).
5) Amount of available stamina seemed increased. DA:O had you really only doing a move or 3 before running out, it looks like you have a whole lot more now.
Leveling has been changed as thus:
1) You no longer have aptitudes (herbalism, potion making, whatever) and instead just have combat skills. Also, no speech craft skill. I really hope this is true, since those systems were pretty bad in the original. I didn't play a rogue though, are the traps'n'flasks now just rogue skills?
2) It looks like your stats always compared to other creatures your level. Not sure but that appears to be the way it works. Notice how your defense % and hit % seem to 'go down' as you level up unless you also increase the pertinent stat? I think that is because the same stat value is being compared to creatures that are a higher level.
3) Magic Resistance and Physical Resistance are slummed in favor of slightly reworded, and less... contrived abilities. Instead of just having half your stats contributing to one, and half contributing to the other (meaning that first + second = constant) you now will only get them from increasing a given stat.
4) Ability Tree's are completely redesigned, and look like they are more intended to be mixed. You'll note that the tree's have level gaps, and no level duplication. So you have like skills requiring level 1,3,4,5,6,7,9,10. THis means at level 2 and 8 you are forced to get an ability from a different tree. No benefit in saving points either (except across trees maybe?)
Narrative Differences
1) You are human. And Refugee. No arguing about this one. At least you still have choice of gender.
2) Discussion Wheel. It looks like there are three main persona's here. Angsty, Whimsical, and CareBear. Nothing we haven't seen before. Feels a little weird in Dragon Age. Seems to work the same as Mass Effect. No idea though if the equivalent to Paragon and Renegade options will show up.
3) Rivals vs Friends. Probably my favorite change. It always seemed rather implausible that people setting out to 'save the world' would let their personal feelings get in the way of that. In this you now get to choose how to treat someone, without the constant worry that they'll up and leave. Being a Rival lets you unlock a certain skill for them. Being a Friend allows you to unlock a DIFFERENT skill for them. I wonder if all romance options require friendship? Or if rivalry can brood lust as well?
I'm sure this isn't everything.
My overall opinion? Well, it looks okay to me. I'm still not sure if the Discussion wheel is a GOOD or BAD thing to be honest. I'd really like to know a bit more about how the nitty gritty combat mechanics work. They do give a LOT of information in the menu though... but it still feels like an important layer of abstraction exists. Will likely buy, but not pre-order.
1) You almost always hit, and bonus' to your hit chance are modified by enemy rank and level
2) The spell tree is slimmer (Potentially good since there were so many useless spells before)
3) Combat is a bit quicker. Noticed that your basic enemies died really fast. This could be an early game thing, but I somehow feel it will be the norm.
4) Flanking gives bonus damage primarily instead of bonus to hit primarily. (Latter may become more relevant vs bosses).
5) Amount of available stamina seemed increased. DA:O had you really only doing a move or 3 before running out, it looks like you have a whole lot more now.
Leveling has been changed as thus:
1) You no longer have aptitudes (herbalism, potion making, whatever) and instead just have combat skills. Also, no speech craft skill. I really hope this is true, since those systems were pretty bad in the original. I didn't play a rogue though, are the traps'n'flasks now just rogue skills?
2) It looks like your stats always compared to other creatures your level. Not sure but that appears to be the way it works. Notice how your defense % and hit % seem to 'go down' as you level up unless you also increase the pertinent stat? I think that is because the same stat value is being compared to creatures that are a higher level.
3) Magic Resistance and Physical Resistance are slummed in favor of slightly reworded, and less... contrived abilities. Instead of just having half your stats contributing to one, and half contributing to the other (meaning that first + second = constant) you now will only get them from increasing a given stat.
4) Ability Tree's are completely redesigned, and look like they are more intended to be mixed. You'll note that the tree's have level gaps, and no level duplication. So you have like skills requiring level 1,3,4,5,6,7,9,10. THis means at level 2 and 8 you are forced to get an ability from a different tree. No benefit in saving points either (except across trees maybe?)
Narrative Differences
1) You are human. And Refugee. No arguing about this one. At least you still have choice of gender.
2) Discussion Wheel. It looks like there are three main persona's here. Angsty, Whimsical, and CareBear. Nothing we haven't seen before. Feels a little weird in Dragon Age. Seems to work the same as Mass Effect. No idea though if the equivalent to Paragon and Renegade options will show up.
3) Rivals vs Friends. Probably my favorite change. It always seemed rather implausible that people setting out to 'save the world' would let their personal feelings get in the way of that. In this you now get to choose how to treat someone, without the constant worry that they'll up and leave. Being a Rival lets you unlock a certain skill for them. Being a Friend allows you to unlock a DIFFERENT skill for them. I wonder if all romance options require friendship? Or if rivalry can brood lust as well?
I'm sure this isn't everything.
My overall opinion? Well, it looks okay to me. I'm still not sure if the Discussion wheel is a GOOD or BAD thing to be honest. I'd really like to know a bit more about how the nitty gritty combat mechanics work. They do give a LOT of information in the menu though... but it still feels like an important layer of abstraction exists. Will likely buy, but not pre-order.
I think the main issue is not the "dumbing down", but dumb it is. Maybe it is just the demo but the enemy seems even dumber than before (hard to believe) and the map design at the start was as linear as a rail shooter (which is pretty much the definition of dumb).
But as I said, maybe that bit at least is just the demo and so maybe it is not that much of an issue... we will see.
No...What truly sucks and has me calling Steam to cancel my pre-order is the preposterous 'look and feel' of the animations. The graphics are tolerable but the animations reduces a classy game to an arcade fighter with pretensions. I HATE how the combat looks, all of it. The toons move at *preposterous* speeds, turning the game into essentially "Mortal Kombat with More Dialogue" if you will. Even the mage twirls their staff back and forth for some reason REALLY REALLY FAST. Hugely disappointed.
But as I said, maybe that bit at least is just the demo and so maybe it is not that much of an issue... we will see.
No...What truly sucks and has me calling Steam to cancel my pre-order is the preposterous 'look and feel' of the animations. The graphics are tolerable but the animations reduces a classy game to an arcade fighter with pretensions. I HATE how the combat looks, all of it. The toons move at *preposterous* speeds, turning the game into essentially "Mortal Kombat with More Dialogue" if you will. Even the mage twirls their staff back and forth for some reason REALLY REALLY FAST. Hugely disappointed.
I used almost every spell I got in DA:O.Zechnophobe said:
Why exactly were they bad? It helped in role play and if you took them, fine, if not...fine. And the persuade was useful and I just wish there were more of those feats. That's dumbing down. Reducing everything to the bare bones because some players don't like it.
At least? If I couldn't even have done that, I wouldn't have even tried the game. There could have been numerous workarounds to allow you to play whatever race you wanted but they didn't pick those. To me, that's a flaw.
Oh, you can have the whole "I love you but I hate you" thing. Love and Rival do work together. I watched the livestream and the dev explained it.
cons: all female characters look like pornstars... combat is beyond flashy,abilities seem very over-powered,that dwarf that's telling the story looks like a huge douche(bigger than dwarf,smaller than human and is dressed like that guy from chacaron video) there's no tactical value in the game anymore tbh it's easier than da 1 on very easy.
speaking of spells... they're kinda crap,where the hell is lighting???earth??? y u no chain lighting!!!?
aoe dmg spells no longer dmg your allies... (laaaaaame) like i said easier than da1 on very easy
I do however love the aoe shield bubbles and shields healers have... mage has evolved into the discipline priest.
Pros: visually pleasing,women looking like pornstars and i dunno... stuff
speaking of spells... they're kinda crap,where the hell is lighting???earth??? y u no chain lighting!!!?
aoe dmg spells no longer dmg your allies... (laaaaaame) like i said easier than da1 on very easy
I do however love the aoe shield bubbles and shields healers have... mage has evolved into the discipline priest.
Pros: visually pleasing,women looking like pornstars and i dunno... stuff
Sure, I did too, once. Doesn't make them all good.darth.pixie said:
Well, speechcraft was basically mandatory. EVERY party would have enough skill points to get pretty much all the skills, and so there didn't end up being much 'choice' involved. You just got them.. every game.
Well, I'll agree that it was implemented badly. You barely knew where you used it and you couldn't solve much by it. All you could do was be nosy more successfully.Zechnophobe said:
And you didn't have enough skill points for all skills...well it depends on what you took. That each had their own skills, yes, but I considered some more important or levelled them up according to their character.
Still they should have made it a choice and have some feats that actually mattered in conversation/non combat situations. In that regard, it's a step back from Neverwinter Nights or KotOR. It nice to have extra dialogue options for each strength and weakness and they did not provide. I wasn't expecting a whole Arcanum/Fallout/Vampire:Bloodlines/NWN entirely different dialogue but still.
I know you said you were undecided about the dialogue wheel but honestly it adds to the whole lack of the game. A persuade/intimidate/bluff/diplomacy or whatever would have been useful and I actually liked making a character in DA:O that did not have "Persuade". Also, the NPCs respond with exactly the same line for whatever you say so again, flaw.
Right...sorry about the rant. I'm tired and still pretty uptight about it all.
Well it can't really be the same time since the darkspawn apparently took over everything, I'm guessing it's a couple of decades latter, or even centuries.Kakulukia said:
And since they gotten alot prettier this time around I assume they put together a darkspawn union that demanded a good health-care plan, then there were probably quite alot of strikes, some slaughters, some demonic sit downs,... trust me these tings take hell of a long time to work out
I believe that the game is told in a series of flashbacks where you see Hawke develop from a fleeing peasant into a champion. I guess that as it starts with the fleeing from Lothering and then switches to important events along Hawke's lifeMr.K. said:Well it can't really be the same time since the darkspawn apparently took over everything, I'm guessing it's a couple of decades latter, or even centuries.Kakulukia said:
And they since they gotten alot prettier this time around I assume they put together a darkspawn union that demanded a good health-care plan, then there were probably quite alot of strikes, some slaughters, some demonic sit downs,... trust me these tings take hell of a long time to work out