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Dragon Age did get at least one thing right though

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Love it or hate it, there is no denying that Dragon Age was much less unweildy than BG (that game that origins was a spiritual successor of) when it came to controlling the actions of each individual group member than Baldurs Gate. BGII was ****ing micromanagement hell, especially once you hit around epic levels and had to take on armies of giants, demons and Dragons in the BGII expansion. I kid you not when I say that I actually spent more than HALF of my gameplay time in BGII: ToB just moving characters around, casting spells and squinting through all of the speciall effects. All so I could make slight adjustments to my formations before letting the fighting proceed for fractions of a second. That type of compexity in gameplay has no place in a real time with pause game at all, and sadly a lot of that aggavation had nothing at all to do with the gameplay, but poorly designed interfaces and no obvious ways of modifying AI scripts.

See how each companion in DAO has the status bar running parallel with the skill buttons? See how an ability bubble pops up above the head of the characters whenever one is used? See how you could script characters to automatically handle basic tasks such as drinking some health whenever it drops too low? These type of design decisions are fairly obvious nowadays, but it sadly didn't occur to the BG team. And I think that PE eternity could improve the feedback even further by dividing the short term status effects from the long term. I must have been a much more patient person than I was 10 years ago, because I just can't replay BGII anymore without getting bored or frustrated at how unweildy the interface design is and how I control even the most basic actions of my group all of the time because they're dumb.

Basically, please be more like Origins and less like BGII.
 

GrainWetski

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Might as well remove the combat completely if having to control your party is too much work.
 

set

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Unwieldy? Uh, what?

In dragon age, there's not much to wield. It pretty much plays like WoW -- with some more impactful crowd control I guess. The dungeons are pretty painful (and much more linear) than BG or BG2's.
In dragon age 2, it's basically a shitty action game. You just sit around and kill wave after wave by spamming aoe abilities. Exploration was cut.
In dragon age 3, it is an action game. Not even the same genre anymore. They "added exploration back in" by adding a bunch of shitty wow fetch quests - how can this be an improvement?

There's nothing graceful about the UI either.

Dragon age also reduced party size, remove complexity, and basically dumbed down the game. If that's your definition of "doing something right" you can go kindly fuck off. Stick with the latest iteration of Epic Call of Angry Kim Kardashian Farn

The only thing I can say is that yes, in Baldur's Gate you have to tactically position your party. It's not the case you can just walk up to the latest boss and stand there the whole fight.
 

Mastermind

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Yeah, in BG you coud block a gap you can also stand with bow waiting for mose big creature to blick in and kill it from safe ditance, the same you coud do in skyrim, killing giant with 100000000 fireballs standing on some high rock.

I think that this was more glitch not tactic ... do you think that in real life a 1 warrior coud block whole corridor ? He whoud be pushed up bu someone stronger ... the same like in DA O ...

DA O was Better in tactics becouse you can not you some glitches to make sure that mages are safe, mages must work to be safe for example magical traps or traps made by your thiefs.

Secondly dragon age was better in tactis becouse you got spell combinations, thirdly Dragon Age was better in tactics becous fighters have not only one gole "Atack" fighters got whole types of abilitys so playing fighter was something more then "click on a fighter age click on a enemy" ...

Besies mage coud still be abe to block enemys ... there was a spell callego "SOUL PRISION" or something like that ... that coud make character not move, and if it was for example a "ogre" and thin corridor the darkspawns that where behind him where blocked.

In BG the only role of fighter was "Click and go" where mages have whole types of spells ... in DAO we also have spells, even spells combinations and even fighter have some activ abilitis ... so yes DAO was better in this ...
 

Mastermind

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The Obsidian boards are worse than the Bethesda boards ever were. Fuck, in some ways they're worse even than the Bioware boards:

An ilusion of control ...every time you have roll on atack on deffence and on everything else, co besiacly you coud pump on a dragon and kill it whoud even 1 puse .. and secondly you coud pomp on that same dragon and he killed you even if you pasued 12 times .. and think every move 10 times ..

In NWN it look perfectly .. iv got paladin on 8 lvl and encouter a lich ... first time he killed me and take only minor demage, second time i killed him takeing also minor demage ... first time i'v paused game at least 5 times, in second i don't pused even onece .. so where controll in that ?!
 

The Bishop

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I agree that scripting character behavior was one of the coolest features of DAO. It got me thinking - what if somebody made a cRPG built entirely around scripted characters battling it out without any intervention. RobotWar-like with all the bells and whistles of a full fledged RPG would be pretty cool.
 

RK47

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Except all that time playing it is...

funny-wasted-gifs-jeep.gif
 

Mastermind

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I agree that scripting character behavior was one of the coolest features of DAO. It got me thinking - what if somebody made a cRPG built entirely around scripted characters battling it out without any intervention. RobotWar-like with all the bells and whistles of a full fledged RPG would be pretty cool.

You could try one of those flash based pay to win MMOs. :troll:
 
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Lilura

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This is how to mod Dragon Age: Origins for the best RTwP tactical experience.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins > BG2.

Better characters, better writing, better combat, better C&C.
 

Kattze

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This is how to mod Dragon Age: Origins for the best RTwP tactical experience.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins > BG2.

Better characters, better writing, better combat, better C&C.

You forgot, better blood. That was the main thing missing in Baldurs Gate. Blood spatter. And gore. Especially during the butt sex scenes.
ORZSp.jpg
 

Sykar

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Love it or hate it, there is no denying that Dragon Age was much less unweildy than BG (that game that origins was a spiritual successor of) when it came to controlling the actions of each individual group member than Baldurs Gate. BGII was ****ing micromanagement hell, especially once you hit around epic levels and had to take on armies of giants, demons and Dragons in the BGII expansion. I kid you not when I say that I actually spent more than HALF of my gameplay time in BGII: ToB just moving characters around, casting spells and squinting through all of the speciall effects. All so I could make slight adjustments to my formations before letting the fighting proceed for fractions of a second. That type of compexity in gameplay has no place in a real time with pause game at all, and sadly a lot of that aggavation had nothing at all to do with the gameplay, but poorly designed interfaces and no obvious ways of modifying AI scripts.

See how each companion in DAO has the status bar running parallel with the skill buttons? See how an ability bubble pops up above the head of the characters whenever one is used? See how you could script characters to automatically handle basic tasks such as drinking some health whenever it drops too low? These type of design decisions are fairly obvious nowadays, but it sadly didn't occur to the BG team. And I think that PE eternity could improve the feedback even further by dividing the short term status effects from the long term. I must have been a much more patient person than I was 10 years ago, because I just can't replay BGII anymore without getting bored or frustrated at how unweildy the interface design is and how I control even the most basic actions of my group all of the time because they're dumb.

Basically, please be more like Origins and less like BGII.

:nocountryforshitposters:

This is how to mod Dragon Age: Origins for the best RTwP tactical experience.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins < BG2.

Better characters, better writing, better combat, better C&C.

/fixed
 

prodigydancer

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better combat
:hahano:

DA:O was a very good game. Even great by 2009 standards - remember, it was the nadir of decline. But it was noticeably worse than BG2 in every way. (OK, maybe romances were done better; I'm not sure because I don't care much for VG romances.)
 

A horse of course

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Ban multiple posters in this thread whose opinions are inimical to mine
 

Akratus

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Alhtough bans are often mentioned as a complete joke, I genuinely feel that anyone who praises the characters and/or writing of dragon age origins deserves one.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

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I agree that scripting character behavior was one of the coolest features of DAO. It got me thinking - what if somebody made a cRPG built entirely around scripted characters battling it out without any intervention. RobotWar-like with all the bells and whistles of a full fledged RPG would be pretty cool.
IIRC they took this feature from Final Fantasy XII.
I kid you not.
 

The Bishop

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Except all that time playing it is...

funny-wasted-gifs-jeep.gif
Like all the time playing games in general amirite? I don't think automating character micromanagement is making a game any more "time wasting" than normal considering there is enough depth in that game outside of mirco. That should just make it a strategic game with elaborate simulation of combat, not any worse than other strategic games in that sense.

I agree that scripting character behavior was one of the coolest features of DAO. It got me thinking - what if somebody made a cRPG built entirely around scripted characters battling it out without any intervention. RobotWar-like with all the bells and whistles of a full fledged RPG would be pretty cool.

You could try one of those flash based pay to win MMOs. :troll:
Never played MMOs but I'm sure they're fun. :troll:
 

Xor

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DA:O was a very good game
No.

Love it or hate it, there is no denying that Dragon Age was much less unweildy than BG (that game that origins was a spiritual successor of) when it came to controlling the actions of each individual group member than Baldurs Gate. BGII was ****ing micromanagement hell, especially once you hit around epic levels and had to take on armies of giants, demons and Dragons in the BGII expansion. I kid you not when I say that I actually spent more than HALF of my gameplay time in BGII: ToB just moving characters around, casting spells and squinting through all of the speciall effects. All so I could make slight adjustments to my formations before letting the fighting proceed for fractions of a second. That type of compexity in gameplay has no place in a real time with pause game at all, and sadly a lot of that aggavation had nothing at all to do with the gameplay, but poorly designed interfaces and no obvious ways of modifying AI scripts.
If you're saying that BG2 would have been a better game if it was turn-based, then yeah. I agree. Also, you can say 'fucking' if you want to. We're all adults here.

See how each companion in DAO has the status bar running parallel with the skill buttons? See how an ability bubble pops up above the head of the characters whenever one is used? See how you could script characters to automatically handle basic tasks such as drinking some health whenever it drops too low? These type of design decisions are fairly obvious nowadays, but it sadly didn't occur to the BG team. And I think that PE eternity could improve the feedback even further by dividing the short term status effects from the long term. I must have been a much more patient person than I was 10 years ago, because I just can't replay BGII anymore without getting bored or frustrated at how unweildy the interface design is and how I control even the most basic actions of my group all of the time because they're dumb.
You're comparing two games that came out 10 years apart. Yes, obviously interface design improved since BG2 came out. And so did companion AI. But you're also vastly overselling DAO's "improvements".

I can play through DAO controlling only one character except on a handful of exceptionally difficult fights, whereas I have to micromanage any fight in BG2 that isn't trivial. This doesn't really bother me - fights in BG2 tend to be more difficult, requiring thinking about tactics, resources, and utilizing the environment rather than just rushing in and killing everything. This is probably because BG2 has a much wider array of spells and abilities to call on than DAO did. And I'd rather have to micromanage a lot of the time than just have 95% of fights pretty much play themselves out.

I am, of course, comparing both games heavily modded, because without mods BG2 is boring and DAO is shit.
 

DragoFireheart

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The biggest disappointment of DA:O was that it failed to live up to BG2.

To call it better after the fact is dumbfuck worthy.
 

Norfleet

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I dunno, I can't think of too many fights in the entire Infinity Engine series that weren't basically tank and spank. Of course, DAO fights are basically just zerg rushes.
 

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