Let's not forget that also the game very strongly "encourages" you to cede significant control to your party AI. An AI which is not and cannot be made capable of understanding waves and cooldowns. And your core "strategic" mechanic is cooldown management for random appearance of waves of enemies of random strength. This is madness. The game is full of such things: ideas and mechanics that just do not work well together.Originally Posted by Bhazor
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Doesn't really follow because at that time I was willing to put the well publicised shortcomings of the game down to EA shovelling an unrealistic dev schedule down Bioware's throat. The only reason I didn't pre-order or day 1 buy it was at the time I was thoroughly sick of the fantasy genre, so I couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't know how it ended up a wall of text, I put two spacers in there. (and another spacer with this one, but the system bizarrely seems to be ignoring them for me).
In terms of combat, you've acknowledged yourself, the problem was encounter design, not the actual system. I liked the system and thought it was a big step up from DA:O and *felt* much cooler. The problem was it was never utilised properly, the waves were boring, and being unpredictable in number meant you couldn't plan properly... but I think the core system itself was fine.
And yes, different people work on different parts of the game but it turns out if you fire a few artists and level designers you can afford to hire extra writers and vice-versa.
As for the party members, you must be playing a different game to me. Few games meld the two so much especially Isabella and the Qunari and Anders and the mages.
"Cool" is a poor justification for combat mechanics.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
@Deano2009
No I said the combat design was shit and that the combat was also shit. Filled with AOE spam attacks (many of which don't have friendly fire even at highest difficulty), it's horribly unbalanced with a handful of tactics can be repeated again and again from beginning to end. The fact the system is forced to rely on respawning waves just for a modicum of challenge is proof the combat engine is broken. Add to that a stunted character development system (still an improvement on DA:O's system mind you) and the best you can say is it's over quickly.
What you're talking about is characters who play a role in a single quest and then just tag along. Simple experiment: pick three party members at random. They are now dead. Has this affected the over arcing story in any meaningful way.
Last edited by Bhazor; 02-04-2012 at 01:39 PM.
Subjective, I liked it, it could have used some more challenge.
Yes. Is the plot the same, yes. Is your experience of it fundamentally changed? Yes.What you're talking about is characters who play a role in a single quest and then just tag along. Simple experiment: pick three party members at random. They are now dead. Has this affected the over arcing story in any meaningful way.
If you don't bring great expectations when you play it DA2 can be enjoyable, but it crumbles when compared to its far superior prequel. Kinda like Deus Ex 2.
Between Bioware's claims that they won't betray the fans who liked DA2 more (Though it seems a lot of people feel they did exactly that with fans of DA:O) and that they're taking inspirations from Skyrim I frankly have very little faith in DA3. Hope I'm wrong, though.
This has turned into a really good discussion! I'm dreading the ending, which seems to be a point of contention.
Frankly, I wish that Bioware would try some form of episodic development. I felt that ME and especially ME2 would have been better without trying to fit into a big, over-arching story, and DA2 has been great (for me) partly because it's so aimless. I would rather spend a bunch of time with the characters, unraveling their stories and just going on missions, than worry about some epic story that the writers may or may not be able to pull off in the end. They can write dialogue tremendously well, and they can make serviceable gameplay, but Bioware just can't consistently nail their story-telling. They need to experiment with their games' structures to find a fit that showcases their strengths and minimizes their weaknesses, because they keep (publicly, embarrassingly) stumbling because of last-minute plot failures.
The more important question here is: which minor female celebrity that caters to Internet nerds are we going to see and maybe fuck in DA3?
They could use kickstarter for this. Make a kickstarter for each candidate celebrity.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Christina Hendricks.
She was in Firefly, therefore she's valid.
Yeah, I was banging that drum back when DA2 was released. Their best bit of DLC for DA:O was Leliana's Song. It wasn't great, but it was definitely BioWare playing to their strengths and making real content rather than churning out horse armor. Why not assign a separate team to make a miniseries of episodes in between major releases? Keep everyone talking about and involved in the Dragon Age franchise, and make tons of money from it.
EA doesn't seem the type of company to pioneer new, unproven business models, though.
Leliana's Song is the only DLC I've ever bought for anything. I rather liked it.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
It's not unproven, it's just hard. Telltale has done it, but they aren't making very complex, visually impressive titles. With an RPG, developers would have to make fairly substantial content--at least a character level's worth of material per release--with combat, dialogue, etc. And not having a big, be-all-end-all story doesn't mean having nothing but an assortment of sidequests. And a couple of hours of play every month isn't really what an RPG fan would be looking for. So it'd be a very demanding process that probably wouldn't pan out. I'd love to see them give it a shot though, because playing an ongoing Mass Effect would've been better than three inconsistent titles spaced years apart.
I'm sure I originally remember a plan for a trilogy of DLC to fit in between ME2 and ME3, and we only really got the one bit with Arrival (arguably Shadow Broker was a second). I thought that sounded a great idea the time.
It's one of the reasons I prefer it to be honest. Combat has always felt like filler in RPGs at the best of times.
That's no excuse to make it even more like filler.
You're right about the characters not really fitting into the story (although by virtue of the framing device, Varric is essential). The question is whether that matters much. They are all well-realized, and they certainly react to the plot even if they don't progress it.
The bigger problem is that some people really need a strong plot to carry them forward, and I've yet to see any evidence of one. I went to the Deep Roads and found that idol, which so far hasn't amounted to anything more than a decent quest involving Bartrand. Now I'm supposed to be stopping a mean-spirited Qunari copyright protection scheme that could threaten hundreds of lives, but I keep getting distracted by murder investigations, revenge schemes, and all sorts of other stuff.
I don't mind the lack of a plot; I've got quests to provide structure, a big cast of characters that I enjoy spending time with, and a functional (if neither taxing nor completely satisfying) combat system to hold my attention. Not everyone's me, though, and it certainly raises the question of what, exactly, the game is supposed to be about. So far I'd say "good-natured dicking around," which, while nice, is hardly a blurb for the box.
So has talking. What are RPGs even about?
We know you don't like RPGs, but that's no reason to spoil it for the rest of us.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
