So... Dragon Age 2...

[pan]

• In BG2 enemies couldn't attack you from five screen lengths away.
• The camera was capable of moving five screen lengths away.

• This is one of the biggest complaints of the infinity engine, the level of abuse possible by this flaw alone is atrocious, cloudkill, archery, 100 sitiational buffs before starting combat the list goes on. Oh and lets not mention the pathetic way finding and the "PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY, PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY, PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY."

• Party members didn't require such huge amounts of micromanagement that acceding control to scripted AI was deemed necessary by devs.

• This was because your "party members" were useless hucks of shit that just drained your xp, accasionally you used them to cast a spell you didn't have or pick a lock if you couldn't... awesome stuff!

• There were more than a dozen different enemy types.

• No there were 4. Undead, dragon, mage and non-mage. The tactics only differed mildly for these 4 situational enemy types.

• Spells and abilities were diverse, the range of their effects leading to variation between fights.
• Positioning played a role in more than it's relation to AoE spells or abilities.

• What other role did positioning play??? The spell effects were vast, but there was only one best spell for the 4 different enemy types... I'm not saying you couldn't use the other spells if you wanted, but there was no need to cast "friends" "open lock" and about 60 other spells.

The other stuff you go on about, hand crafted maps =DDDD was only because of the limitations of their crusty 2D engine. The items and level scaling... sure I'll give you that one, level scaling sucks balls.

Yeah both games are shit but DA:O is shittier, now fuck off you retarded troll.

 

[Dreaad]

You can do this.... all the way through Dragon Age 2.... No you can't avoid killing Merebeth at the end of the game no more than you can avoid killing Irenicus.

In fact apart from merebeth there is only one other time in the entire game that you have to kill true templars, if they are possessed by demons it makes sense to kill them.[/quote]

...

Who the fuck cares?! (it's not even true - Anders quest, lol)

My point is:
DAII and SoA have major cities with ban on rogue mages:
DAII - ban exists only in story. Shit
SoA - ban exists also in gameplay. It creates meaningful choices, possibly fun battles, rainbows and shit. Small but cool thing

I was simply replying to your previous post, suddenly changing the topic to story + gameplay is weak.

Also it is true, if you read carefully you'll see I mention that apart from merebeth there is one other time you have to kill templars... anders quest in chapter 1, that's it. All other quests are optional or you can side with the templars.
As for BG2 ban on mages, perhaps the story/gameplay mechanics are more in tune than DA2, though at least the ban makes sense in DA2 and offers more explanation than "It's illegal because we say so." which you have to admit is rather silly. Not to mention the hundreds of mages you fight in the city, some of whom are liches, random evil mages and maniacs, but when they cast spells the cowled wizards don't show up, they must ALL have had a license right? =D

 

[Dreaad]

• In BG2 enemies couldn't attack you from five screen lengths away.
• The camera was capable of moving five screen lengths away.

• This is one of the biggest complaints of the infinity engine, the level of abuse possible by this flaw alone is atrocious, cloudkill, archery, 100 sitiational buffs before starting combat the list goes on. Oh and lets not mention the pathetic way finding and the "PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY, PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY, PLEASE GATHER YOUR PARTY."

• Party members didn't require such huge amounts of micromanagement that acceding control to scripted AI was deemed necessary by devs.

• This was because your "party members" were useless hucks of shit that just drained your xp, accasionally you used them to cast a spell you didn't have or pick a lock if you couldn't... awesome stuff!

• There were more than a dozen different enemy types.

• No there were 4. Undead, dragon, mage and non-mage. The tactics only differed mildly for these 4 situational enemy types.

• Spells and abilities were diverse, the range of their effects leading to variation between fights.
• Positioning played a role in more than it's relation to AoE spells or abilities.

• What other role did positioning play??? The spell effects were vast, but there was only one best spell for the 4 different enemy types... I'm not saying you couldn't use the other spells if you wanted, but there was no need to cast "friends" "open lock" and about 60 other spells.

The other stuff you go on about, hand crafted maps =DDDD was only because of the limitations of their crusty 2D engine. The items and level scaling... sure I'll give you that one, level scaling sucks balls.

Yeah both games are shit but DA:O is shittier, now fuck off you retarded troll.

Soo basically you got nothing and resort to name calling.

 

[DeepOcean]

You can do this.... all the way through Dragon Age 2.... No you can't avoid killing Merebeth at the end of the game no more than you can avoid killing Irenicus.

In fact apart from merebeth there is only one other time in the entire game that you have to kill true templars, if they are possessed by demons it makes sense to kill them.[/quote]

...

Who the fuck cares?! (it's not even true - Anders quest, lol)

My point is:
DAII and SoA have major cities with ban on rogue mages:
DAII - ban exists only in story. Shit
SoA - ban exists also in gameplay. It creates meaningful choices, possibly fun battles, rainbows and shit. Small but cool thing

I was simply replying to your previous post, suddenly changing the topic to story + gameplay is weak.

Also it is true, if you read carefully you'll see I mention that apart from merebeth there is one other time you have to kill templars... anders quest in chapter 1, that's it. All other quests are optional or you can side with the templars.
As for BG2 ban on mages, perhaps the story/gameplay mechanics are more in tune than DA2, though at least the ban makes sense in DA2 and offers more explanation than "It's illegal because we say so." which you have to admit is rather silly. Not to mention the hundreds of mages you fight in the city, some of whom are liches, random evil mages and maniacs, but when they cast spells the cowled wizards don't show up, they must ALL have had a license right? =D

To be fair the fights with the litches and lunatics don't happen on the middle of the street and the time it happens they show up. The reasons to why the crowled wizards ban magic aren't exactly explained but is hinted that it isn't exactly for altruistic reasons, the crowled wizards are forgotten anyway by the story after you rescue Imoen and the story isn't about the Crowled wizards but about Irenicus wanting a big God like dick so he can forget about the elven lady that broke his feelings . The motivation for DA 2 mages ban is explained and is it is banned because of EVILs demons, it is boring, they don't even let open the possibility of the Templars just being pricks because in the end any mage of notice is possesed by a demon anyway. Meredith just go crazy evil bitch for no real reason and is a threat for both mages and templars at the end, so you have the opportunity to kill her too after killing every single important mage. The main story of both games are shit anyway, but on BG 2, at least, Gaider wasn't obssesed by gay sex yet and the story made sense even if in the end it was just Irenicus melodrama.

 

[Lagole Gon]

You can do this.... all the way through Dragon Age 2.... No you can't avoid killing Merebeth at the end of the game no more than you can avoid killing Irenicus.

In fact apart from merebeth there is only one other time in the entire game that you have to kill true templars, if they are possessed by demons it makes sense to kill them.

...

Who the fuck cares?! (it's not even true - Anders quest, lol)

My point is:
DAII and SoA have major cities with ban on rogue mages:
DAII - ban exists only in story. Shit
SoA - ban exists also in gameplay. It creates meaningful choices, possibly fun battles, rainbows and shit. Small but cool thing

I was simply replying to your previous post, suddenly changing the topic to story + gameplay is weak.

What topic? What are you even jabbering about? Roguey mentioned CW fights provoked by spellcasting (lore affecting the actual game! W00t!). I said it's cool and rad.
And you are coming up with some templar kill count BS? Who the fuck cares? There's no equivalent of this in DAII. You can't provoke them by your in-game actions. What choices? You can side with them once or twice, but the outcome is always the same.

Also it is true, if you read carefully you'll see I mention that apart from merebeth there is one other time you have to kill templars... anders quest in chapter 1, that's it. All other quests are optional or you can side with the templars.

Nope. Templars overthrowing Meredith are still templars. (Who the fuck cares?)

As for BG2 ban on mages, perhaps the story/gameplay mechanics are more in tune than DA2, though at least the ban makes sense in DA2 and offers more explanation than "It's illegal because we say so." which you have to admit is rather silly. Not to mention the hundreds of mages you fight in the city, some of whom are liches, random evil mages and maniacs, but when they cast spells the cowled wizards don't show up, they must ALL have had a license right? =D

Athkatla magic ban is a part of the FR lore. They're just magic mafia.

So...
Gameplay constantly contradicting a major plot point > lore (with a hand wave) affecting the gameplay and creating some depth?

 

[Infinitron]

"Merebeth"? You'd think a fan of DA2 would remember the names of major characters. Hmmm...

 

[Roguey]

Technically everyone in SoA is an optional enemy

Uh... no? There's a lot of unavoidable combat on the critical path. This isn't Fallout.

BTW can you even run away from random encounters? (srsly, I don't remember)

I don't believe so.

When have fighters ever been a bigger threat than a mage in the middle of spellcasting in AD&D?

When you are buffed against crowd control - or whatever crap they prioritize - you can ignore them for a precious two or three turns.

Whatever spell they're casting might not be some kind of paralyzing spell. Could be magic missile or aoe damage or time stop. Better not to ever find out.

You actually can keep killing the cloaked wizards until they agree to stop going after you.

Yes. And that's good stuff. Bribe them/kill them/avoid them - choices! Fun! DAII could use something like this with Templars.

As I mentioned, it still doesn't make sense. Like every RPG ever, it especially doesn't make sense how they choose to attack you in small groups instead of all of them all at once. They decided not to bother with this silliness in DA2, but didn't want to waste resources implementing an unwinnable battle.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Technically everyone in SoA is an optional enemy

Uh... no? There's a lot of unavoidable combat on the critical path. This isn't Fallout.

I was jokingly referring to the option of attacking everyone. That was confusing, my bad. Wait. Actually...
...it's not far from the truth. The amount of necessary fights is rather small. Bodhi/thieves questline -> 5(?) in spellhold -> (You can skip underwater caves and 90% of the Underdark) -> Bodhi -> 1 in Suldanessellar ->Tree -> 9 hells. I'm probably forgetting something, but that's most of it. Of course, unlike in Fallout, here you usually want to fight, but this semi-open construction is still a great thing.

As I mentioned, it still doesn't make sense. Like every RPG ever, it especially doesn't make sense how they choose to attack you in small groups instead of all of them all at once.

Less sense than blood mage Hawke & Merril casting blasphemous spells in front of Templars, in an anti-magic police state?

 

[Jick Magger]

Less sense than blood mage Hawke & Merril casting blasphemous spells in front of Templars, in an anti-magic police state?

Not to mention that if you're a Mage Hawke, your first action upon entering Kirkwall is brutally killing several thugs with your unsanctioned magic within spitting distance of the Kirkwall Chantry and in front of dozens of the Kirkwall guard. There isn't even a "You saved my life, so your secret's safe with me" line from the guard you talk with, he just seems to conveniently forget that he lives in a city with an extremely totalitarian grip on its mage community.

 

[Rahdulan]

Less sense than blood mage Hawke & Merril casting blasphemous spells in front of Templars, in an anti-magic police state?

Not to mention that if you're a Mage Hawke, your first action upon entering Kirkwall is brutally killing several thugs with your unsanctioned magic within spitting distance of the Kirkwall Chantry and in front of dozens of the Kirkwall guard. There isn't even a "You saved my life, so your secret's safe with me" line from the guard you talk with, he just seems to conveniently forget that he lives in a city with an extremely totalitarian grip on its mage community.

Hilarious because it could've been easily avoided by simply removing blood magic as a possible mage specialization given it's such an important element of the story. It's basically a blatant example of story and game design departments not talking to one another, as if making 90% of mages use blood magic didn't already make that obvious.

 

[DraQ]

My point is:
DAII and SoA have major cities with ban on rogue mages:
DAII - ban exists only in story. Shit
SoA - ban exists also in gameplay. It creates meaningful choices, possibly fun battles, rainbows and shit. Small but cool thing

I was simply replying to your previous post, suddenly changing the topic to story + gameplay is weak.

UR MOM WAS WEAK LOL:

Not to mention CW are doing thier jobs, unlike the order of blind cretins. Again, gameplay and story are killing each other.

though at least the ban makes sense in DA2 and offers more explanation than "It's illegal because we say so." which you have to admit is rather silly.

Silly authorities, depriving people of their gods given right to make things in 20ft radius explode and catch fire.


Am I the only one here who has his retardo sense tingle while in this thread?
It may not be rat diplomacy, but it definitely does have potential.

 

[Zeriel]

It's a thread about Dragon Age 2 not being shit, a great, big massive dump on the chest of the consumer, still steaming. Of course your retardo sense is tingling.

 

[SCO]

Shooting for that 'smallest interval between registration and dumbfuck tag'.

Sorry to disappoint you, but probably some retards who were confused for drog, bryce or andhaira alts already got that record cinched.

 

[DraQ]

It's a thread about Dragon Age 2 not being shit, a great, big massive dump on the chest of the consumer, still steaming. Of course your retardo sense is tingling.

 

[Jaesun]

So Zeriel is Nomask's alt?

 

[Zeriel]

I'm whoever's alt you want me to be, baby.

 

[Jvegi]

• There were more than a dozen different enemy types.

• No there were 4. Undead, dragon, mage and non-mage. The tactics only differed mildly for these 4 situational enemy types.

Hold on there for a fucking second. Could you explain to me what do you consider "an enemy type"? Yeah, there are undead, but that includes ghasts, mummies, liches, skeletons, ghosts, vampires etc., each of them with distinct resistances, spells and on attack effects. Are various golems in the "non-mage" category alongside with werewolves and demons? Doesn't the fact that human-like opponents can be archers, assassins or multi-class justify the expansion of the number of "enemy types" well over the 4 you've so arbitrary proposed?

 

[pan]

As I mentioned, it still doesn't make sense. Like every RPG ever, it especially doesn't make sense how they choose to attack you in small groups instead of all of them all at once. They decided not to bother with this silliness in DA2, but didn't want to waste resources implementing an unwinnable battle.

It's funny that you say this, given how offensive the DA series is in this regard.

1. While fighting the undead at Redcliffe, the undead "horde," as some call it, conveniently charges you one at a time so that you or your graphics card don't get overwhelmed.
2. During the fade sequence of the Broken Circle quest, the demon lord you face is thoughtful enough to have his minions spread out, one on each 'island'. This allows you to easily despatch them before facing the demon lord itself mano a mano. How nice of him to give you a fair fight
3. The darkspawn at the tower of Ishaal and the deep roads -- really everywhere that you encounter them -- spread themselves evenly throughout the maps. Even at the vaunted deep trench, home to a massive fortress/darkspawn breeding facility, overrun with darkspawn as you are told, you encounter only small, bite sized groups of enemies. The map even opens with the 'epic' battle sequence of five dwarves engaging waves of five darkspawn at a time.
4. Every battle in DA2 consists of your enemies attacking you in waves.

I could go on and list nearly every battle in this series, as very few of them give an excuse as to why your enemies are attacking you piecemeal. The wizard police of Athkatla attacking you in increasingly more powerful groups before finally attacking you with all that they can muster, the masters of their guild (one of the hardest fights of the game), is very nice by comparison, as it makes sense for a police force to respond to each incident with calculated force, rather than summoning all of their resources against some first-time offender and blowing him to smithereens (while at the same time allowing every other crime to go unpunished).

 

[Roguey]

Less sense than blood mage Hawke & Merril casting blasphemous spells in front of Templars, in an anti-magic police state?

Eh, only one NPC in Mask of the Betrayer gives a damn about Safiya being a red wizard. You can take off her disguise, it's purely cosmetic.

A thing David Gaider said about this:

TUK: In DA2, no one seemed to care that my Hawke was a blood mage. I was walking around Kirkwall with a staff in my hand going "I'm a blood mage! Look at me!" Everyone just didn't notice.

DG: Part of that was, there was actually a plot in chapter one which got cut, which was if you were a mage, it specifically addressed that point. Not much we can do about that. Part of it is gameplay. One assumes that you're not walking around announcing to the world that you're a blood mage, or a mage for that matter. One assumes there are people who wear robes that aren't mages. You don't see that very much. So there's a little bit of a handwave there, I totally recognize that. The problem with the plot we cut is it wasn't working very well, it was very complicated, it involved going into the Fade and a few other things and we couldn't get it to work. Had we been a little smarter when we started we would have had some smaller reaction in the world, just recognizing who you were without a giant plot that required a lot of content. Going in the future I'd like to have more recognition of that. It is kind of funny, if you think about it too much there's a lot of things where gameplay and the story don't match up--

TUK: We really do think about it too much, we do know that, that's why we're here.

DG: Well, we think about it too. When we cut that plot I was like "Oh. All right, so...I guess nobody notices..." So I put a couple comments into Meredith's dialogue, she sort of comments "We knew who you were," and in a few other places. I think we should've put something into Cullen's dialogue. [laughter]

TUK: Poor Cullen. So oblivious.

DG: Jennifer wrote that plot, and afterwards, I forget what it was, someone said "You know, wouldn't Cullen happen to burst onto the scene and you're casting spells, wouldn't he say 'So you're a mage...'" It was too late for us to do anything about it and we decided that Cullen is just very oblivious.

It's funny that you say this, given how offensive the DA series is in this regard.

You mean every RPG ever? Literally all of them do it.

I could go on and list nearly every battle in this series, as very few of them give an excuse as to why your enemies are attacking you piecemeal. The wizard police of Athkatla attacking you in increasingly more powerful groups before finally attacking you with all that they can muster, the masters of their guild (one of the hardest fights of the game), is very nice by comparison, as it makes sense for a police force to respond to each incident with calculated force, rather than summoning all of their resources against some first-time offender and blowing him to smithereens (while at the same time allowing every other crime to go unpunished).

As soon as you kill the first wave, they should be attacking you with the most overwhelming force possible. FFS if you murder half a dozen cops they're not just going to send small groups of incrementally-more-well-equipped police at you in a row.

 

[Dreaad]

So...
Gameplay constantly contradicting a major plot point > lore (with a hand wave) affecting the gameplay and creating some depth?

Hmmmm, fine, you win.
I still stand by my thought that this bioware game takes a step back in the right direction (probably by accident *sigh*) but it clearly they still has a long way to go, most likely a journey they will never take.

 

[pan]

It's funny that you say this, given how offensive the DA series is in this regard.

You mean every RPG ever? Literally all of them do it.

You said that DA2 'didn't bother with such silliness,' I was responding to that, hence why I quoted it above my message.

As soon as you kill the first wave, they should be attacking you with the most overwhelming force possible. FFS if you murder half a dozen cops they're not just going to send small groups of incrementally-more-well-equipped police at you in a row.

There are only three waves iirc -- which is totally acceptable. The first time it's just a routine disturbance, so they send out some doughnut-dunking cops to check it out. Second time, same offender, shit might be serious, better send a SWAT equivalent. Third time, the SWAT team is dead, time to call in the national guard. Oh, what a surprise, the national guard died, guess you really are the spawn of Bhaal after all

I liked the cowled wizards. If you didn't it is because you are dumb.

 

[Roguey]

You said that DA2 'didn't bother with such silliness,' I was responding to that, hence why I quoted it above my message.

Miscommunication on my part; I meant they didn't want to bother with it in this particular instance.

There are only three waves iirc -- which is totally acceptable. The first time it's just a routine disturbance, so they send out some doughnut-dunking cops to check it out. Second time, same offender, shit might be serious, better send a SWAT equivalent. Third time, the SWAT team is dead, time to call in the national guard. Oh, what a surprise, the national guard died, guess you really are the spawn of Bhaal after all

There are six waves.

 

[pan]

Six waves is too much; it should not take that many. The mages should recognise you as a serious threat after only a few waves and then respond with an unrestrained use of excessive force thereafter. Indeed, the cowled wizards are rather silly and the filler mobs between 1-6 are essentially trash mobs of the same order as those of Dragon Age. So, it is a legitimate flaw and could have been done better.

 

[Percy]

 

[Space Satan]

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