Dragon Age 2 - Demo impressions

[PhroX]

I'm still playing DA:O. It's such a superior game than DA2. The combat is so much better. Which is funny, because people say DA2 fixed the combat. I guess people have short attention spans, and can't wait the 2 seconds it takes to swing a 2 handed sword.

It's not that it's slow, it's that it's completely devoid of anything resembling tactics other than heal heal heal heal heal heal etc. DA2 isn't great when it comes to this either, but at least you have to put a little thought into mitigating damage.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah I just recently got the DA:O DLC. Way too short. They need to take a cue from other DLC that at least tries to offer $1/hour of gameplay from DLC. Return to Ostagar takes bout an hour, and same with Warden's keep. It was fun, but too short.

Yeah all the DLC is too short, doesn't really add anything useful if you have already beaten the game or are most of the way through it, they rarely use new areas, are very overpriced, and some aren't even finished! (The one about Morrigan is TERRIBLE! It starts off kind of neat, then you find her and its like they just STOPPED WORKING ON IT! The ending answers NOTHING, is completely stupid, and the whole DLC isn't even part of the canon!).

I'll just check out the DA2 DlC on youtube.

This is how I wish I had viewed all of the DLC

edit: oh, and I bought Leliana's song, but I still can't figure out how to start it. What a ripoff.

I don't remember how to start it, but a simple google search should tell you. It isn't a rip off because you don't know how to start it. Its the only one I actually liked even though it definitely was still not worth the money.

Even more annoying, you have to use bioware points to buy dlc. And it isn't an even number of points, so I have like 40 points leftover which is useless.

Yeah Bioware points are frelling ********. I used a calculator to make sure I didn't have any left over.

It's not that it's slow, it's that it's completely devoid of anything resembling tactics other than heal heal heal heal heal heal etc. DA2 isn't great when it comes to this either, but at least you have to put a little thought into mitigating damage.

The 2 handed weapons in DA:O are painfully slow, no one should be swinging something that big that slowly, it would be so easy to dodge! There isn't a lot of really complex strat in either DA:O or DA2 combat and any people are claiming is exaggerated for the most part. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't amazing either.

 

[Disgustipated]

I never swung a 2 handed weapon, but I always considered combat in DA:O to be based off more realistic medieval style combat. I'm just guessing here, I have no idea how to fight that way. But it seems like they did go for more realism than in past games. I think you would swing that slow if you were wearing heavy plate armor.

Da2 went for a more arcade type gameplay. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's just a little too fast for me. I would have liked something in between.

I seen how Leliana's song started on the youtube. I think the problem was I passed the trigger for that in my current game maybe? The time I passed the trigger was when my DLC was saying unauthorized. It's a known bug apparently. And I have to go into cmd.exe and stop and start DAUpdaterSVC.

As for tactics, neither game really delivers on tactics Baldur's Gate2 style. There just aren't as many spells as BG2. With limited spell selection, one can hardly expect as in depth tactics as BG2. And you can't kneel or crawl like in other games. So you can't use movement to improve your tactics significantly.

 

[Maniacal]

I never swung a 2 handed weapon, but I always considered combat in DA:O to be based off more realistic medieval style combat. I'm just guessing here, I have no idea how to fight that way. But it seems like they did go for more realism than in past games. I think you would swing that slow if you were wearing heavy plate armor.

Somehow I don't think so.

Spoiler :

 

[Disgustipated]

Are you trying to tell me you can swing a 2 handed sword (look at Starfang, that thing is huge) faster wearing full plate armor?

 

[Maniacal]

Are you trying to tell me you can swing a 2 handed sword (look at Starfang, that thing is huge) faster wearing full plate armor?

The speed of the swing doesn't change in the game depending on what armour you are wearing and yes I am sure you can, people who were trained for years in heavy armour can move a lot easier and faster in it than most people think. Realism was not a consideration when they designed Dragon Age's combat.

EDIT: The sword swing in DA:O isn't incredibly slow, I did say painfully slow which is not an exact measurement. Its still a bit slow and kind of annoyingly slow sometimes in the game. I'm also not counting those ridiculously oversized ones either.

DA:O 2h feel like a choreographed stage fight kind of speed while DA2 is arcadey fast (which is okay since its a high fantasy game).

 

[Disgustipated]

I feel really dumb regarding Lelianna's song. But in the youtube video I watched, it appeared to start in game. But it turns out I can't trigger it in game. I had to go to the main menu and hit other campaigns.

As I was mentioning above, if they really wanted tactical combat, they'd make it so you can interact with the environment more, and have more movement options (and a lot more spell selection). but being a party based game, that isn't likely to happen.

 

[Disgustipated]

Leliana's song is clearly the best DLC of the Origins lot. The others are just quick dungeons.

Although I'm stuck at the end battle right now. I have to fight a dragon, and afterwords I get no time to recuperate and heal my injuries before I'm attacked by a mage and a very tough melee fighter. The battles in this DLC are extremely hard because I have limited resources (you can only buy so many injury kits and healing poultices). Not to mention I have only 3 people in my party.

I only tried this battle once, but I'm having trouble concentrating due to hunger pains I'm experiencing. I'll have to finish this dlc later. But like I said, it is the best dlc. It has new music, full voice acting from the protagonist, a good plot, hot lesbo action , and more. The only bad thing is it doesn't take place in Orleis. So a few of the locations are reused from Origins.

 

[Dandek]

Just played the 360 demo and these are my impressions:

1. Game-play is more fast paced, spells have more impact than the first game.

2. Played as mage and wow they managed to make it fun to play due to the spell casting animation with the staff!

3. Flemeth in dragon form transforming to her battle suit is the highlight of the demo. Her outfit looks awesome, dialogue animation is better as well since she moved around rather than being stationary.

4. Instead of the traditional bow and arrow that was in the first game, the dwarf has a crossbow that have interesting abilities.

5. I'd say the character animation during dialogue is much better as well.

Overall very promising demo!

 

[Aroddo]

Just played the 360 demo and these are my impressions:

1. Game-play is more fast paced, spells have more impact than the first game.

2. Played as mage and wow they managed to make it fun to play due to the spell casting animation with the staff!

3. Flemeth in dragon form transforming to her battle suit is the highlight of the demo. Her outfit looks awesome, dialogue animation is better as well since she moved around rather than being stationary.

4. Instead of the traditional bow and arrow that was in the first game, the dwarf has a crossbow that have interesting abilities.

5. I'd say the character animation during dialogue is much better as well.

Overall very promising demo!

#1 yup, faster, but i don't see how that is connected to spells having more impact
#2 if a cheerleader for a mage is all it takes to make you happy ...
#3 you're into milfs, i guess. dialogue animations were in DA:O, too (e.g. the arrival in Ostargar). no improvement there.
#4 DA:O crossbows: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Crossbows
And it's not the crossbos with abilities - it's the dwarf.
#5 you already said that in #3

But it's interesting to see what people that like DA2 better than DA:O value most in the "improved" game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I actually did try playing DA2 again using mean options, but was disappointed the options weren't very mean, and had no real effect on gameplay. I do like the influence system in DA2, and a few other interface improvements, but the game just doesn't draw me in. It seems boring. They probably figured speeding up the combat would make it more interesting, but it doesn't. Combat was better in DA1 anyways.

One thing I do want to mention about DA2 mages. While it does seem cheesy to have no friendly fire, I do agree with the decision. Da1 mages were too limited. I also noticed on my latest playthrough of Da1 that they finally nerfed the shield you used to be able to put around your tank. In DA1 it was too easy to shield your tank and cast firestorm (or inferno, I forget which game uses which) and tempest/blizzard etc. I tried to avoid doing that, and only did it once or twice (like the battle with Cauthrain that you aren't supposed to win). Da2 mages are better because you get a bigger chance to utilize all your spells, and aren't limited to conserve mana for healing purposes. If only the rest of DA2 combat wasn't crap...

 

[Mad Man]

Dragon Age social group now up and running.

 

[Maniacal]

Oh yeah I forgot we had social groups on this forum. I never check any of the ones I'm in because there's no well point... its also inconvenient :/

 

[GoodSarmatian]

So according to Ray Muzyka Dragon Age 3 will be a mix between origins and Dragon Age 3.
I guess this means they only re-use each area four times.

 

[Aroddo]

and they'll only ignore half the lore ...

 

[Maniacal]

Who the devil is Ray Muzyka? I remember reading something from Bioware about that a while ago. I'll reserve my judgement until after its released, I am NEVER pre-ordering anything from Bioware again.

Except maybe Mass Effect 3, we'll see, but I expect to get my money's worth out of ME3 because its a competent/decent dev team overall (although DA2 was amazingly stable, fast and the GUI and menus worked really well so props to whoever did those, hopefully they can put those guys to work on ME3's menus and stability).

 

[Disgustipated]

You don't know who Ray Muzyka is? Shame, shame. Hint: he's why Bioware is called Bioware (along with his partner of course)

DA2 was very stable, it had better performance and less crashes than DA:O. It was a smooth game. I just question the design decisions and general laziness of the game. I just think most of the talent was/is working on their MMORPG, and the guys who made DA2 were the second stringers. Or maybe even third stringers.

 

[Maniacal]

No, and I don't particularly care whom he is either to be honest. Just like I don't really care who acted as whom in a movie.

 

[Dachs]

I just think most of the talent was/is working on their MMORPG, and the guys who made DA2 were the second stringers. Or maybe even third stringers.

Karp is the chief writer man for TOR, and Gaider is the chief writer man for DA. Pretty sure that means third-string is on TOR.

 

[DirtyFinger]

Eagerly awaiting DA3.