Preview And there be dragons!

[Jaesun]

I am quite surprised there are Dragons in Dragon Age.

 

[thesheeep]

I don't see what's wrong with the tactics or graphics here.

Conflicts with:

What I found most disturbing, though, is that the dragon doesn't move at all, it just stands there

Where is the conflict? The dragon just standing there, not moving or flying around is neither a problem with graphics (because the dragon itself looks quite good, IMHO) nor with the tactics involved to fight it.
Of course, WOULD the dragon fly around, then tactics would become interesting. Maybe

 

[denizsi]

Where is the conflict? The dragon just standing there

Exactly. When an opponent isn't the kind that necessitates any kind of thinking on how best to approach it so you can simply hack at it mindlessly, and that's exactly what is happening there, there can be no involvement of tactics.

Let's think of it like this:

You're watching rape porn. The female subject is bending over and crying, but no one's actually raping her. The would be rapist is rubbing his penis against the victim's legs, and getting off onto her feet.

People complain that the would be rapist didn't even penetrate her. WHERE IS PENETRATION??!!1 THIS ISN't RAPE!! Then, someone comes along and says:

"I don't see what's wrong with rape here. What I found most disturbing, though, is that the victim doesn't fight back at all, she just bends over there."

 

[Ahzaruuk]

Scalie lovers are obviously being screwed over in this game since there's no option to romance the dragon.

No... dragon romance... FFFFUUUUU-

Oh? Really?


Fuck this game then.

 

[poocolator]

...and getting off onto her feet.

What's wrong with that :wink:

 

[Major_Blackhart]

She might have some stinky feetsies.

Edit:
Also, this game looks at the moment to be some bland generic POS, and nothing to really gawk at in terms of options.
I could be wrong, but so far, the demo shows that I'm not.

 

[kris]

These cheese tactics might have worked in the unmodded version, but tactics mods won't allow this. This also doesn't work where the dragons turn hostile immediately after talking, like Abazigal in TOB, especially the Ascension version.

Those cheese tactics weren't required. Lower resistance and sequenced magic missiles were highly effective. Also, the wing buffet is a nice trick...most effective in the first rounds if you didn't anticipate it and start with your mages summoning their little hearts out (or already have summons). Just stagger your summons and your warriors so that the summons take the first wing buffet (or vice versa) and it becomes trivial to keep the dragon pinned in melee. Fighters get hurled but there is always someone to hold the line.

From there it is just whacking it while mages cast lower resistance/strip magic then fire off an ungodly swarm of sequenced magic missiles. I took down every dragon that way, most of them very quickly. With the dragon fights becoming almost completely trivial as you got up in level. Get your mages to cast simulacrum to double the magic missile fun. Tactics my ass. Buffing your party and unleashing every resource at your command as quickly as possible isn't a tactic, it's just brute force.

You just described your tactics and called it "not tactics".

Not using tactics would be everyone just wacking away at it.

 

[thesheeep]

Where is the conflict? The dragon just standing there

Exactly. When an opponent isn't the kind that necessitates any kind of thinking on how best to approach it so you can simply hack at it mindlessly, and that's exactly what is happening there, there can be no involvement of tactics.

I think you just misunderstood what I said, or I wasn't clear enough. I was only talking about the tactics involved to fight that dragon, as it is.
That the dragon is nothing more but a golem and doesn't behave as it should and that there SHOULD be more tactics in fighting a dragon, sure.
But in a RPG this is almost impossible to achieve. Something indirect like commanding an army would be possible and nice, but IMHO that would not fit into Bioware's target audience.
I guess that they want to give the player the feeling that "I killed that beast! ROAARRR!".
Bad luck for most of us, good luck for those that like it that way

 

[denizsi]

But in a RPG this is almost impossible to achieve.

I don't get this. No one's asking for emergent army behaviour modeling here. Just a variety with a little more meaning than hacking away at legs and feet.

Mage casts entangle/paralyze/freeze/etc.; fighters cripple the creature so it can't fight back as good or fly away; maybe a character can whip a rope at its neck or whatnot: an opportunity is created to hurt the creature for real, else the creature smashes your party. Quite fucking simple. So simple, even a retarded next-gen kid would get it.

 

[thesheeep]

So simple, even a retarded next-gen kid would get it.

I wish developers would be that optimistic

 

[bezimek]

[Strenght] HULK SMASH SCREEN

[Perception] That looks like NWN 2

[Endurance] *watches through both videos*

[Charisma] C,mon, don't you want to play it already? I know you want to.

[Intelligence] So they are fighting dragons with their weapons.

[Agility] *quiclky closes the browser window*

[Luck] "The video you are trying to watch is currently unavailable"

NICE

 

[Rhalle]

At least it doesn't hop when they miss it.

But yeah, the combat is slow, and there is no reactivity. It just stands there while melee swings at it.

 

[circ]

But in a RPG this is almost impossible to achieve.

I don't get this. No one's asking for emergent army behaviour modeling here. Just a variety with a little more meaning than hacking away at legs and feet.

Mage casts entangle/paralyze/freeze/etc.; fighters cripple the creature so it can't fight back as good or fly away; maybe a character can whip a rope at its neck or whatnot: an opportunity is created to hurt the creature for real, else the creature smashes your party. Quite fucking simple. So simple, even a retarded next-gen kid would get it.

Yeah. Tactics BioWare, do you speak it? You know, like the kind you had in TOEE. In fact the above plays just like some bigger fights in TOEE. *sigh* Troika *sigh* Sir-Tech.

 

[someone else]

Haste+footman's dragonlance works for those Dragonlance Goldboxes.

 

[Volourn]

TOEE had tatical battles? LMAO

 

[circ]

Clearly you haven't played TOEE. Try and kill Lareth and his goons without tactics? No probs. Breaking into the tower back entrance at level 4-5 without the right preps? Not likely. Unless you don't consider buffing up with saves and using area attacks tactics.

 

[poocolator]

Volourn always makes controversial statements, no matter how stupid, because it's just what he does.

 

[Volourn]

"Clearly you haven't played TOEE. Try and kill Lareth and his goons without tactics? No probs. Breaking into the tower back entrance at level 4-5 without the right preps? Not likely. Unless you don't consider buffing up with saves and using area attacks tactics."

TOEE is one of the easiest games ever. Tatics are minimal at best, and 'prebuffing' in TOEE is more a waste of time than anything. Back entrance of tower? One fireball and game over. Most of the enemies there can't hurt your team seriously anyways. *yawn*
Same with Lareth's crew. Sorry. There are maybe a handful of TOEE encounters that have any real tatical need at all.

 

[elander_]

Don't lie Volourn.

 

[Texas Red]

There are maybe a handful of TOEE encounters that have any real tatical need at all.

Even if this statement is true, the buggy, unfinished mess that ToEE is, it's still more fun that anything Bioware ever released since Throne of Bhaal. Biowhore games simply DON'T HAVE any gameplay.

 

[JarlFrank]

Sometimes I wonder if Volourn actually played all the games he talked about or if he just reads the hype.

 

[Volourn]

"Even if this statement is true, the buggy, unfinished mess that ToEE is, it's still more fun that anything Bioware ever released since Throne of Bhaal. Biowhore games simply DON'T HAVE any gameplay."

Absolute bullshit. TOEE wa sboring, crappy,and shity all rolled into one. the only things TOEE got right was the combat system AND THE CHARACTER system. Everything else was dreadful.


"he talked about or if he just reads the hype."

Nah. That describes most codexers as anyone who has actually played TOEE would know that the combat is easy and 'tatics' are optional and unneeded. *yawn*

If I followed only hype I would be a Bethesda mark yet I am not. *shrug* And, considering I get a large amount of my hype from the Codex you'd think I'd be kissing Codexian loved games. R00fles!

Then again, the Codex likes games like MW, DD, TW, and SOZ so it is obvious Codex opinion is worthless.

 

[thekdawg21]

Before the patch, my main character of BG2 was a bounty hunter and set up oh, about 90 traps after selecting the peaceful option. Dragon lasted .5 seconds.

"At least BG2s dragons had some very lethal breath weapons. The shadow dragon was pretty mean."

No.

The breath weapons of the dragons in BG2 could decimate your whole party in a couple of rounds , if you didn't buff before the battle, and even then, you had to have the right buffs in your spellbook and freshly memorized to be prepared for a dragon battle.

I'd agree with Volly's no, IF it is aimed at your choice of dragon. The shadow dragon was easy - by that time the player party is are uber-leveled, which is why they had a 'you MUST fight, trade a rare item, or trade a truckload of gold' setup. Compared to the Irenicus fight soon after, it was pretty basic.

The red and silver dragons on the other hand...if you fought those without backtracking (i.e. red Firkraag in Chapter 2/3) , and didn't cheese it by pre-buffing the fuck out of your party (to ridiculous 'I'm going to choose the peaceful dialogue option and then cast every buff I have, while placing my thief in backstabbing position, spreading my party out so they can't get wiped by the breath attack and putting my mages where they can't be hit, all while the dragon sits there waiting for me' levels) were fucking hard.


That was a nice thing about both 2nd edition and BG2. Dragons were genuinely hard motherfuckers, to the point where it was questioned whether you could really put one in a DnD crpg without having to nerf it to the point of ridiculousness (yes, carefully placing each dragon encounter in caves where the dragons couldn't fly was a nerf, but that was kind of forgivable through engine limitations - certainly can't think of a comparable generation rpg that did dragons better). And BG2 gave them as optional encounters, with the tradeoffs for avoiding them becoming greater as the game went on (fight all 3 dragons, get awesome rewards, fight just the last one and get meh rewards, avoid all fights and have to trade a lot of gold).

 

[JarlFrank]

Then again, the Codex likes games like MW, DD, TW, and SOZ so it is obvious Codex opinion is worthless.

Then again, Volourn likes games such as NWN1, Jade Empire and Mass Effect so it is obvious Volourn's opinion is worthless.

 

[Volourn]

All 3 games are awesome. Makes my opinion actually matter. R00fles!