Why I hate Dragon Age, from a fan. *PC*

[mayney93]

if you want a quick easy game with voices go play Mario on yer fricking ds and stop whining, it was a good game that has its flaws but its still good incomparison to most rpg's if not the best of the past decade, however for me dungeon siege would be my fav rpg with dragon age making a very close second

 

[Axolotl]

Does this game get a hell of a lot better a few hours in? Because I played the first 4 hours or so at a friends house and pretty much decided it was just another crappy Bioware game, but in this thread you all seem to be gushing over how good it was.

Maybe I'll give it another look.

if you thought the other bioware games are crappy then no you wont like it

Really? Oh well, hopefully they'll make a good RPG someday.

 

[RollForInitiative]

And then we have the difficulty curve. Even on the second play, it can kick your arse something fierce. I often felt I was one party member short, or that I had missed something in the manual

I have difficulty seeing this. To be honest, I found the game so easy on Nightmare that I started playing using a solo character instead of a full party.

 

[Jenova65]

I do agree with the main voice acting, especially since in battle your character suddenly gains vocal chords, but I raced through the game in 72 hours on my first playthrough. The ending took a while though, I found that the non-replenishing back up fighters went down too quickly despite my group being fully levelled.

Then again, I'm not awesome with the strategy, so... heheh.

This probably depends on who you put in what fight, when you get to the archdemon you want either elves or mages for their ranged attacks, since for a portion of the fight you can't get to it, and melee characters are gonna get royally whomped standing toe to toe with the archdemon.
So use melee armies in the first areas and try and keep ranged armies for the big fight (imo)

 

[TPiddy]

you can't play as a lunatic psychopath and expect to get the girl

I take it you weren't after Morrigan then?

And yeah, Dragon Age was really hard. But it was incredibly rewarding. Loved it for that.

Right again, Hub. It's also between normal difficulty and too hard. It's challenging. The puzzles are also great when you figure them out, especially the Yusaris one in the tower.

Probably one of the most rewarding games 2009.

Especially when defeating the Dragons.

Oooh, don't spoil it for me. I have yet to beat either (there's 2, right?) of them. I was going to on my first character (a mage) but I found it so boring that I made a second character.

Gotta love Dwarf Warriors in Blood Dragon Armour.

3.

I have a "special" strategy that guarantees victory against the High Dragon, so if you get stuck on that one, just let me know.

Which ones are there? Oh god, I can only remember the Haven dragon.

There's High Dragon, the Darkspawn leader, and then a really spoilerific Dragon that I won't tell you about, because it's a surprise.

I didn't count the Archdemon and I've played through the game once. I remember there being 2 other than the Archdemon. Is the aforementioned 'spoilerific' dragon part of the main plot or do I need to go somewhere specific?

No, the spoilerific dragon is something you can skip

It's part of one of your party-members quests.

Got it!

Spoiler

Flemeth

That fight was HARD when I tried it.

My dwarf's banging said party member anyway.

Just thought I'd tell you that there's a third dragon that's not the Archdemon

Spoiler

Outside of Flemeth and the High Dragon, there's a dragon in the royal throne room in Orzammar... it's not as big or as difficult, but it's a full-fledged Dragon, not a drake...

 

[Rayjay06]

For me, the mircromanagement was my biggest gripe of the game. In ME and KOTOR I could set my allies to default and pick whoever for whatever mission, choose whichever equipment had the best overall effectiveness, and "run and gun". DA:O forced me to keep alternative armors for differing circumstances, limit my party choices to typical MMO roles (tank, healer, etc.), and strategically plan the battles. This, for me, made for boring combat, tedious item and party management, and an overly difficult experience. I enjoyed the game enough, I suppose, but being that I love RPGs (or at least RPG elements) I was very dissapointed by this game. Got halfway through my second playthrough before picking up Fallout 3 and Mass Effect again. Those games I can (and have) play over and over without ever getting bored. By contrast, I can't see myself playing DA:O even one more time.

 

[A13X T3h NubCak3]

Dragon age origins is my favourite game in the world.. But its your opinion

 

[squid5580]

you can't play as a lunatic psychopath and expect to get the girl

I take it you weren't after Morrigan then?

And yeah, Dragon Age was really hard. But it was incredibly rewarding. Loved it for that.

Right again, Hub. It's also between normal difficulty and too hard. It's challenging. The puzzles are also great when you figure them out, especially the Yusaris one in the tower.

Probably one of the most rewarding games 2009.

Especially when defeating the Dragons.

Oooh, don't spoil it for me. I have yet to beat either (there's 2, right?) of them. I was going to on my first character (a mage) but I found it so boring that I made a second character.

Gotta love Dwarf Warriors in Blood Dragon Armour.

3.

I have a "special" strategy that guarantees victory against the High Dragon, so if you get stuck on that one, just let me know.

Which ones are there? Oh god, I can only remember the Haven dragon.

There's High Dragon, the Darkspawn leader, and then a really spoilerific Dragon that I won't tell you about, because it's a surprise.

I didn't count the Archdemon and I've played through the game once. I remember there being 2 other than the Archdemon. Is the aforementioned 'spoilerific' dragon part of the main plot or do I need to go somewhere specific?

No, the spoilerific dragon is something you can skip

It's part of one of your party-members quests.

Got it!

Spoiler

Flemeth

That fight was HARD when I tried it.

My dwarf's banging said party member anyway.

Mine was too. Hurray for sharing women! *high-five*

When Alistair climbed up and shoved his sword through the skull of that dragon I got the biggest, most awesome rewarding feeling ever.

Although with the High Dragon I just used Morrigan and ran up and down so it couldn't kill me until it was dead.

Alistair? No it was Zevran with 2 longswords that saved the day.

The only battle that gave me any real challenge on normal was the Gaxbrang (or whatever) in Denerim. He was a brute. I had to change everything for that battle.

 

[CuddlyCombine]

How did you get 125 hours out of one playthrough? I got 50 at most, and I did all the quests...

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Well, I'm certainly not a fan and I don't like it much. Gave up after I got to the capital city. I found combat to be a bit of a nightmare, specifically controlling your team mates. The behaviour and tactics settings didn't work properly half the time. I spent most of my time giving them individual orders, otherwise they end up acting like a bunch of lobotomised chimps. Morrigans favourite trick was to go and cast spells on areas that the enemy were standing on ten seconds earlier. Combine that with the camera angles obscuring your view of the fighting and the difficulty of directing things with the mouse in the more confined spaces when your surrounded by enemies and I don't find combat much fun at all.
It's a pity really because I thought it looked really nice and the story sounded quite interesting, even though it was fairly run of the mill fantasy. I really wanted to like it, I liked NWN and felt NWN2 somehow cocked up the gameplay and I was hoping ths time they might have got it right again.

 

[veloper]

was there even a point to the original post?

 

[Zagzag]

I've not got the game but have tried it at a friend's house. I'm 5-6 hours in and am loving it, though I did have to put it onto easy difficulty to get past certain points.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I skipped the last couple paragraphs since I haven't beaten it yet and don't want to hear anything about the ending, but coming from someone who is new to a party-based RPG I'd like to say Dragon Age is definitely easier to learn. In other words, it's a much better game for beginners than Baldur's Gate. I tried BG and I had no idea what I was doing. It kind of just assumes you've played D&D before, and it doesn't help that the game is pretty difficult on the default setting. And if you turn the difficulty level down, you get less XP. That's not fair to newbies at all. On top of that even, it doesn't matter how many people are in your group, if YOU die it's game over.

I'm getting much better at this playing Dragon Age on Easy mode. The tutorials are more in-depth, and Easy mode doesn't punish the player. I'll try BG again at some point now that I understand things better.

 

[omega 616]

I would much rather have 125 hours (although I did it in about 30) game time than 6, I feel I am getting my moneys worth then.

The difficulty was a bit high but that meant it felt more rewarding and prolonged gameplay.

I didn't try to keep people sweet, I chose what I thought was the closest to what I would actually say/do in any situation. If my team didn't like it, give them a gift when you pick them up.

I preferred not having voice, why would I read something, chose for my character to say it then hear him say it? It would be like reading English sub titles in an English film before the people have said it.

I am not saying your wrong, just my take on the points you brought up.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I would have liked a voiced PC as well. In Mass Effect that was the primary reason I gave a damn about Shepherd. I felt myself caring a lot more about my companions than my own lifeless character in Dragon Age.

Also, 125 hours? I finished it in 35 on Normal. There can't possibly be that many more sidequests I missed can there?

 

[GonzoGamer]

So do you hate it or love it.
I was playing it on the ps3 and I thought it was quite good. Not as immersive as a game like Fallout 3 and I think if it was more of a seamless open world sandbox, it would've been easier to lose myself in it.

The music was really bad too. Not just intrusive but programmed badly; like playing battle music long after the battle has ended. We need a custom soundtrack option in it.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

You can really tell that the bulk of Dragon Age was made prior to Mass Effect, that's why it feels more like a Post KOTOR title and less like the real "Next Generation" of Fantasy RPG's. I guess we'll just have to wait for Dragon Age 2 for that.

 

[FirsstormGojkilp]

I'm used to playing things on easy mode first time round to get used to the controls, and not let the story get delayed,else why play? I must admit that it was quite a nice change that it was difficult enough to kill me quite a few times even on the casual setting. If you think this game is overwhelming, try Sacred 2! Too ambiguous.

 

[BeeRye]

I found that the difficulty really depended primarily on the party you formed. Originally I had a sword and board style character, but on my second playthrough I tried out the three mages and a tank tactic, and you pretty much can't lose unless you consciously try to with that setup.

Spoiler

Dragon Age scares me. Not in a *boo* way, not in a creepy way (bar the run up to the broodmother fight, that was quite intense), but due to the hefty investment (125 hrs. first run on normal) of time in a playthrough. Every interaction can have consequences and they can potentially gimp your group and your story.

That seems like a pretty long time to me, I'm not exactly sure but I think my last playthrough on normal was around 38 hours, and I didn't skimp on the side-quests.

Spoiler

Finally, the potentially closed paths at endgame. The relationships between the characters are quite real: you can't play as a lunatic psychopath and expect to get the girl (or boy). The relationships between the companions were so compelling I had great difficulty choosing conversation options because I was genuinely scared about losing a friend in the party. Even non party members had me hanging.

That's probably the thing I enjoyed most about the game outside of the combat. I liked that the game put you in situations where you couldn't win with everybody, it spiced up the conversations with your party in my opinion. It's actually easy enough to keep everyone happy through most of the game though, it's just those few situations the game throws at you where you have to pick between two characters you need and you know you can't win them both over.