Poll: Dragon Age vs Dragon Age: The Battle Continues!

[Woodsey]

Origins.

Two isn't awful, but it chose to spend its 30 hours making the point that you can't expect to have control over everything and everyone - something they'd already illustrated in DA:O just as effectively, if not more so because that game actually made sense, with one sub-plot.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Large field spells are mostly a waste of time.

So, if mages are not single target damage dealers, and if area of effect is a waste of time.

Where did I say AoE?

Large. field. spells.

large[lahrj] Show IPA adjective, larg·er, larg·est, noun, adverb
adjective 1.of more than average size, quantity, degree, etc.; exceeding that which is common to a kind or class; big; great: a large house; a large number; in large measure; to a large extent.

I did not say AoE is a waste of time; any more than saying "people who are diagnosed sociopaths should be euthanized" is the same as saying "all people should be euthanized." Do you understand that the word large(and also field for that matter) denotes a subset of the total set? There is a point to using certain words. That's why I put them there. They are meant to be read and understood.

However, your skill or otherwise does not change the fact that Dragon Age Origins is not particularly well balanced. The basic numerical mechanics do not operate in a consistent way. Not all playstyles are equal in power or ease. I don't understand why that is such a terrible thing to hear.

Except none of that is really true, because as I said it was quite easy to play nightmare mode without pausing. It isn't about being cooler than other people. It's about most people don't play the game intelligently and balance relies on people using their brains somewhat. I don't have some special ability where I'm so pro that I hit a button in just the right way and suddenly my lightning spell does 200 base damage instead of 100. I'm using the same spells. Everyone else just seems to not know how to line up cone of cold to hit as many units as possible or how to buy Alistair a nice sword and shield. And so they immediately call it unbalanced because they were expected to put in an effort.

Most everything else is about on par and mana clash is only usable against select enemies.

Really? Riposte is on par with momentum? Fein death is on par with lethality? Shattering blows is on par with indomitable? Defensive fire is on par with arrow of slaying? Anti-magic burst is on par with crushing prison? Mana drain is on par with walking bomb? Flying swarm is on par with blood wound?

Riposte is a level 2 talent, momentum is a level 3 talent. So obviously it's better as it requires more points spent to get it.

Feign death can be used to save the life of a rogue character who is about to die, so id say its an alright ability. Momentum is better if you have a good healing setup. I do find it funny though that you're trying to compare abilities that you think suck to abilties that you think are the best like there's nothing in between. In call of duty a guy with a crappy pistol is going to lose to the guy with the assault rifle; but it doesn't make the game unbalanced. Nor does it negate the fact that there are a dozen assault rifle types that are good as well.

Juxtaposing an attack talent and a defense talent to compare them is weird. It would be like saying which is better this washer or this dryer. I dunno bro they are both useful?

Couldn't say. Never used an archer as they were the only actually bad class in DAO.

They are both useful but for different things. Crushing prison is more of a run of the mill fight so I guess you could call it more useful. Doesn't really make it unbalanced though. Plenty of spell points to go around.

I'm honestly not sure which you're asserting is better. Blood wound can be a lot of fun but I've gotten a lot of mileage out of flying swarm too.

But that's not balance. Balance implies that all these things are equally useful to the game, not just that you can find a use for them if you are in the right situation.

Balance doesn't automatically mean they have to be used everywhere. And it's not that I can just find a use in the right situation, it's that they are more useful than other spells if you find that situation. That's why you need them.

Every spell and ability being 100% just as successful in every single situation ever would be the most boring game imaginable. You could just close your eyes and press buttons. Spells are supposed to be useful in different ways precisely so that you have to think while you're playing.

However, it makes an absolute joke of many of the hardest encounters in the game. Encounters which you could not finish in 30 seconds if you just decided to "charge through and wreck everything".

What hard encounters? It's all pretty simple. I mean the worst of it is probably the high dragon and as I recall it can pull people to its feet from across the map with a beat of its wings, so summoning large field spells there seems like a great way to let it kill some of your party for free.

No. You paralyse your target. You step out of the room. You cast a field spell into the room. You paralyse your target until it is dead.

The door to the landsmeet gets locked during the duel. You can't step out of the room.

That's exactly what I did though. Assassin shadow archer drop decoy then repeatedly shoot enemies with 100% criticals that get ridiculous damage.

Congratulations. You noticed that Assassin/Bard/Shadow is the optimal rogue spec and that there's no point building a rogue any other way once you discover that one.

Bard isn't a subclass in DA2... and you're defeating yourself because you just argued that there is no optimal way to set up a class in DA2... which according to you there is and it's super easy to play as.

Two weapon fighting is better though. 3 criticals a second is better than 1.

Bows look cooler and the game's combat system is boring anyways so I might as well enjoy it visually. Also I had heard that bows did higher single target DPS because number of criticals isn't important if one critical does more damage than the other 3 combined.

You meant it's a game that requires the player to understand that AoE is shit because you never manged to use it.

Most spells I used in DA:O were AoE spells. Stop making things up. Do I really need to sit down and re-explain the meaning of the word large? Although to be fair I still used those on occasion, just not ever storm of the century really because the potential for friendly fire becomes too large.

I know I don't have your staggering, titanic cranial capacity, but surely this should actually prove your point. Even I, clearly a massive noob, could break the game using AoE. What more evidence do you want that it is incredibly imbalanced?

Well firstly it has nothing to do with my being smarter and more my willingness to actually think. Most of this stuff is just obvious, but people have been conditioned to never really try at video games. You don't have to worry about trapping yourself and having to restart the whole game because you didn't pay attention. You can never make a horrible enough decision that you can't win. In call of duty you don't even have to try to avoid the bullets these days, what with replenishing health.

Secondly for it to be imbalanced it would have to be 'better' not 'easier.' If we play a game against a computer where you can get 10 points for writing down your name and I get 11 points for whistling yankee-doodle-dandy backwards then my way is better. Maybe we need 5 points to win so we both won. But my way is better despite both of them being rather closely balanced.

You mean exactly like rogues in origins had the ability to physically overpower their enemies

And what ability would that be?

I think we need to focus on the important thing here though, which is that the fact that one particular rogue build is vastly, vastly superior to all the others is, like all the things we've been talking about, absolutely not a sign of poor balance.

So we agree that DA2 has worse balance?

all future Bioware games must be carbon copies.

Carbon copies? Nah they could do with more spells and some boob physics. At least DA2 has one of those.

I get the feeling you have something to prove here

Yes, and you have something to prove as well. That's what is called an argument/debate. We both make statements. Then we try to prove ours is the correct one... It's not an advanced concept.

I'm sure you're a better player, nay, an all round better person than I am and that all my objections and observations are simply my fault for just not understanding the game well enough to be able to comprehend its true brilliance in the way you do.

I don't understand why you're taking this so personal. It's like an Inferiority Complex cranked up to 11. Is this like literally the first time you have ever disagreed with anyone ever about anything?

 

[Terminal Blue]

I don't understand why you're taking this so personal. It's like an Inferiority Complex cranked up to 11. Is this like literally the first time you have ever disagreed with anyone ever about anything?

No.

It is however, the first time I have ever encountered someone who appears to consider pointing out pretty minor problems with a video game they like equivalent to comparing a close member of one's family with some kind of large mammal.

I find that extremely creepy. Ergo, I'm done.

 

[Amaror]

snip

Yes, obviously, the overarching story was about the blight, but it was not what the game was about. The majourity of your time was spent dealing with the Civil War Story.
But your rule is a story is proven bad when you can sum it up in a sentence.
Ok, let me try this:
"Guy goes to a school for wizards and has some adventures on the way."
"Sauron is being bad, lets kill him."
"Everybody want's to sit on a throne made of swords"

I think you can see my point. But i still see what you are trying to say, i just disagree with you on that subject. I liked the Storys a lot. So why don't we just agree to disagree.

 

[Terminal Blue]

All typical rogue builds like Cunning daggers, sword axe, swords, sword dagger, all still own the damage meters, even non-typical builds are fine.

The main problem with rogue is that most classes require two stats to be effective. Rogue only requires one. Therefore you have twice the min-maxing potential of every other class.

Cunning can be made to do absolutely everything for a rogue. It adds to your attack. It adds to your defence. It adds to your critical chance. It adds to your party's attack. It adds to your party's defence. It adds to your party's critical chance. It adds to your attack damage. It adds to your backstab damage. It adds to armour penetration. It adds to lockpicking ability. It adds to coercion.

You only need the absolute bare minimum dexterity to use the gear you want to use. Beyond that, everything can go into cunning without leaving any noticable weakness in your character. It isn't like your pure magic mage who can deal 3000+ damage to Gaxkang with mana clash but has basically no utility anywhere else (although that's still silly), it really is an acceptable answer to everything the game throws at you and makes each point you spend on your character go far, far further than it probably should.

From an abstract design perspective, because I'm getting kind of sick of subjective measures of difficulty. I don't think one stat should be able to totally supercede the role of another (or several others) while retaining its own advantages. That doesn't strike me as good balance.

I know you can make other builds work even on nightmare. Heck, if you play well you can make just about anything work on any difficulty. The fact that this isn't a game where you have to min-max just to survive does not change the fact that this kind of bullshit can give you a really screwy advantage.

The worst part is that it could all have been fixed with one tiny thing which was implemented in DA2, which is diminishing returns. Very, very simple.

I didn't read the entire argument so forgive me if you've already said this, but if you're going to ***** about the shitty balancing of dao and how some aspects of a class are beyond useless while some are the clear choice, talk about mages. Shapeshifting is absolutely fucking awful while Arcane Warrior is absolutely broken.

Yeah.

I get that there is a "learn to play" argument with some of these things. I'm certain you could make shapeshifting work if you specifically built a character around it. Having read all the whining about the weakness of blood magic over on the blood magic thread, I'm forced to accept that I can't judge shapeshifting too harshly because I've never set out to build a character specifically to use it.

However, arcane warrior gives many, many powerful advantages without sacrificing any of the core mage utility. Shapeshifter basically fulfils the same basic function while imposing many, many restrictions. Ergo, it's worse. Not strictly worse, there are some situations in which shapeshifter may be preferable to arcane warrior, but they are going to be very rare and not nearly as common as the reverse.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think you can see my point. But i still see what you are trying to say, i just disagree with you on that subject. I liked the Storys a lot. So why don't we just agree to disagree.

Can do.

Like I said, I really enjoyed playing through most of the stories because the storytelling is good and I got caught up in the characters and setting and how well it all connected to the flow of gameplay (something seriously lacking in DA2). I would still contend they are not the most interesting or innovative stories in the world, and I think the premise holding them together was flimsy (although again, not as flimsy as DA2) but in enjoyment terms I probably had more fun playing through that story than any game I can remember.

Overall, I know Origins is a superior game. I get that. I don't think there's as much in it as some people say, and I dislike what I see as the arrogance of simply dismissing DA2 altogether, because frankly I think DA2 had cool ideas. It wasn't as fun, it didn't have that quality of implementation, but the bits of it which were good were good, and the bits of it which weren't good often had the potential to be good with a little more polish.

Ultimately, I just don't think it's responsible from a consumer standpoint to put any game you like on a pedestal, or indeed to simply disregard a game because your overall impression was bad. There are states between perfect and irredeemable.

 

[A3sir]

I preferred Origins. What was sold to me was "The modern Baldur's Gate", and with DA:O, it's exactly what I got, then with the sequel, I was wanting more of the same, but instead I got "Fantasy Mass Effect". If I wanted to play Mass Effect, I'd play Mass Effect.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I wasn't really a big fan of dragon age origins. I can acknowledge why people like it, it just didn't click with me. 2 felt a bit better to play but I can honestly say since the emergence of the modern day AAA game industry I have never seen a AAA title so lazy. It might have been a much better game if they had more time, but that EA "make a game by the end of the year" deadline shows like a ************ all the way down to the game's bones. "Everything takes place in one town" being the premise of the game feels much less like a creative decision than it does a way to optimize resource and time constraints.

 

[Tayh]

I never really cared much for the mages' plight or the oppression of templars. Serves them right for being so overpowered!
Bought DA2 the day it came out, but I still haven't managed to finish it up. At least I'm in the third act now, so it can't possibly go on for much longer...

 

[LiquidGrape]

Dragon Age II had Isabela and Aveline. Clearly Dragon Age II wins by that virtue alone.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Dragon Age: Origins
Between the story arcs and the characters and the actual points of conflict, Origins is completely superior.

Also, the mage and templar conflict was done entirely better in the first game. The second one was retarded. "Oh no, the Mages and Templar leaders are actually going to talk thanks to Hawke and the lady from the church is going to join in. GUESS I GOTTA BLOW UP ALL TO HELL."

Fuck you Anders. The multiple times I killed you through reloads was entirely justified.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Origins is better over all I feel. Though I do like the changing dialogue of DA:2.

Though I always found the secondary classes lacking in pretty much ever way, in both games.

 

[GoaThief]

In fact, you could have washed out the colour palette on Dragon Age 2 and much of the game would look exactly the same except with higher detail textures and nicer arses.

How can you ignore the likes of shit mountain where enemies can hit through mounds of poop?

A for awesome too!

Yes, this kind of thing happened in DA:O as well (bullshittery may be detected)...

 

[Terminal Blue]

my god, it's like a case study in psychological projection.

Better than a case study in overcompensation.

Constructive feedback here though. When your entire argument hinges on "you simply lack the ability to think" then maybe you need to go away and think about why you needed to resort to that, or indeed why people have no desire to waste any time on conversation with you. Because if that's the argument you're going to make, then it is truly time wasted.

Moreover, when your only evidence or reasoning for anything you're saying is "oh, but I soloed nightmare and it was piss easy" (despite my somehow being concerned about friendly fire) or "oh, but I found the game so easy it doesn't matter" and leave no analysis or point of comparison to support your belief, then I'm sorry but my subjective experience is completely different, and it says a lot to me that you believe this simply indicates that I wasn't playing the game as intelligently as you.

So here's the situation we're at. I can't line up cone of cold properly, but apparently I can use death cloud and storm of the century without hitting my own party. I can't buy a decent shield, but I can buy 100% magic resistance equipment so I no longer have to worry about hitting my own party. The game was incredibly easy for you and you had perfect threat control and beat every encounter in less than 30 seconds without using any exploitative tactics or abilities at all, but it's also much, much harder than ordinary games and requires more thinking than the average person is willing to put in.

Now, I hesitate to say that you have a point, but there is a point to be had. Does any of this really matter? Does it matter if some abilities are overwhelmingly more useful than others? Does it matter if half the skill sets in the game exist to carry a small number of extremely powerful or game-changing talents? If you can still play a variety of ways and have fun, does it really mean anything, and the answer is probably "not very much". It never really impacted on my enjoyment. However, I acknowledge on an abstract level that it's not good design. Having half the number of overall talents but having them all be equally useful would have actually resulted in more net choice.

I get the Johnny [http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Johnny] impulse, to coin another Magic analogy, because it pretty much describes my core engagement with RPGs too. So yeah, I know you can beat the game as a warrior archer. You can beat the game with anything and it will probably be fun. However, as you yourself said, if one result comes out at 11 and another comes out at 10, does it matter if you only need a 5? It doesn't matter if you can find a situational use for any of the vast number of dross talents in Origins, because if you're still building your character primarily with the purpose of getting to a small core of generally useful abilities then it's just not as fun as having every level feel like you're getting something useful.

That's the last time I'll try and explain my position.

 

[Terminal Blue]

How can you ignore the likes of shit mountain where enemies can hit through mounds of poop?

Go see a doctor. Now.

Also eat more fibre in future.

Yes, this kind of thing happened in DA:O as well (bullshittery may be detected)...

Umm..

 

[Littaly]

Dragon Age: Origins, though I'm by no means a hater of Dragon Age II. Also, Awakening deserves to be on the poll, it's extensive enough and different enough from Origins to be judged on its own merits, and in some ways it's actually the best "entry" in the series.