Dragon Age 3 Coming - Your Input Wanted

[fazers_on_stun]

From http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/dragon-age-3-coming-your-input-wanted-1B5941635#/technology/ingame/dragon-age-3-coming-your-input-wanted-1B5941635

I hope all you DA fans let Bioware know that DA2 seemed like a cheap console port compared to DAO, and to not make the same mistake with DA3...

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

I'm not going to lie, I did like DA2 more than I did of DA1 (or DAO). That said, I can see why some fans didn't like some of the features in DA2...but I wonder, what didn't you like (that was in DA2 and wasn't in DAO)? In other words, I'm curious to know what "YOU" didn't like...

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Too linear gameplay, poor combat sequences compared to the original for a couple things. Plus the visuals just were not as interesting or immersive as the original. While I would have liked DA2 if I had never seen DAO/DAA, it really is a few notches down in my book..

 

[bystander]

I'd have to say that DAO had a better environment. DAO2 had tons of reused areas. It felt like I kept going back to the same zones, only slightly rearranged. However, the skill system in DAO2 was improved. I especially like the cross class combos. Oh yeah, I also wasn't too pleased with the change to make rogues unable to function while being attacked. Playing a duelist as a pseudo tank was fun in DAO 1.

As long as DAO3 does not choose to reuse the same environments over and over, I'm good with the rest.

 

[casualcolors]

Oh Bioware. This was maybe not the best thing. But at least you're not raping one of your older IP's.

 

[BeastLeeX]

have 1 and 2, never played 2 YET. I loved 1 but 2 looks more Hack n Slash GoW style.

 

[AntiZig]

DA1 actually had strategy in it. Where you had to look and time things, move your guys etc. DA2, you still have to time things in order to hit the combos correctly and you need to move your guys out of the AOE, but other than that the strategy/tactical element is lost very hard. Especially considering that they took out the over the top camera view.

Secondly, skill cooldowns in DA2 are ridiculous, especially for mages. In retrospect, sustained spells have gotten stronger, but cmon, 45 secs on fireball spell? that does 1/10 of the damage a rogue can deal during that time. Where's the balance? mages have been reduced to support, because there's so much down time between spell casts that it isn't even worth it to build a nuker mage.

Lastly, the open world of DA1 had much better feel and setting than the singular city of DA2. Yes I understand that the story was structured so that it all took place in the same locale, but I wish they could spend a bit more time on the exterior maps to make them bigger and more unique instead of rehashing the same cave over and over. The deep roads part, laughable in its length, might as well skip it all toghether. Because it's nothing more than disgrace to present the deeproads with what bioware put in DA2.

TLDR: DA2 console game, while DA1 is a PC game. Lets not forget that RPG or tRPG started out on PCs with BG and NWN. Innovation to the mechanics is nice, but complete disregard for them is something completely different to innovation.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

I'd have to say that DAO had a better environment. DAO2 had tons of reused areas. It felt like I kept going back to the same zones, only slightly rearranged. However, the skill system in DAO2 was improved. I especially like the cross class combos. Oh yeah, I also wasn't too pleased with the change to make rogues unable to function while being attacked. Playing a duelist as a pseudo tank was fun in DAO 1.

As long as DAO3 does not choose to reuse the same environments over and over, I'm good with the rest.

+1. Game developpers should never use/reash the same environments for too long (let alone revisiting the area) if it's suppose to be part the campaign. I forgive this statement in "real" open world games.

I also agree with AntiZig, the balance of each character was...well not balanced very well. I'll replay an entire campaign if it means trying another character type (first tried Rogue,... then i was going to play Mage) but i've noticed (while leveling 2 mages in the group, 1 was support/medic and the other was suppose to be a damager)....well I've noticed that while they do lots of damage...they're useless for a good minute right after. Strategy was to get all 3 other group member to finish off but if that fails, all fails. Anyways, I wish the mage character was a bit more flexible (cool down being one of them).

Also, as much as I love Bioware's games (Mass Effect, particularly), I'm not a big fan of the semi-open world campaign. For me, it's either one or the other. Anyone feel the same?

Would you rather it be a complete run through (linear campaign) or would you rather it be more open world (a la Skyrim)?

 

[bystander]

+1. Game developpers should never use/reash the same environments for too long (let alone revisiting the area) if it's suppose to be part the campaign. I forgive this statement in "real" open world games.

I also agree with AntiZig, the balance of each character was...well not balanced very well. I'll replay an entire campaign if it means trying another character type (first tried Rogue,... then i was going to play Mage) but i've noticed (while leveling 2 mages in the group, 1 was support/medic and the other was suppose to be a damager)....well I've noticed that while they do lots of damage...they're useless for a good minute right after. Strategy was to get all 3 other group member to finish off but if that fails, all fails. Anyways, I wish the mage character was a bit more flexible (cool down being one of them).

Also, as much as I love Bioware's games (Mass Effect, particularly), I'm not a big fan of the semi-open world campaign. For me, it's either one or the other. Anyone feel the same?

Would you rather it be a complete run through (linear campaign) or would you rather it be more open world (a la Skyrim)?

I remember feeling the same way about the mage, though with a little thought, I still found them useful when using a few of the combos. In reality, it seemed that combos were the only way to win at high difficulty. That said, a backstabbing rogue and tank were the most powerful, but the combos made all classes needed, except the archer.

I would not want a Skyrim open world in a game like DAO. DAO is far more story driven and requires some stuff to be linear. I like both game types a lot, but the truth is, I get more exciting gaming experience from the story driven game like DAO than Skyrim, but I do get more replay value out of Skyrim.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

DA1 actually had strategy in it. Where you had to look and time things, move your guys etc. DA2, you still have to time things in order to hit the combos correctly and you need to move your guys out of the AOE, but other than that the strategy/tactical element is lost very hard. Especially considering that they took out the over the top camera view.

Secondly, skill cooldowns in DA2 are ridiculous, especially for mages. In retrospect, sustained spells have gotten stronger, but cmon, 45 secs on fireball spell? that does 1/10 of the damage a rogue can deal during that time. Where's the balance? mages have been reduced to support, because there's so much down time between spell casts that it isn't even worth it to build a nuker mage.

Lastly, the open world of DA1 had much better feel and setting than the singular city of DA2. Yes I understand that the story was structured so that it all took place in the same locale, but I wish they could spend a bit more time on the exterior maps to make them bigger and more unique instead of rehashing the same cave over and over. The deep roads part, laughable in its length, might as well skip it all toghether. Because it's nothing more than disgrace to present the deeproads with what bioware put in DA2.

TLDR: DA2 console game, while DA1 is a PC game. Lets not forget that RPG or tRPG started out on PCs with BG and NWN. Innovation to the mechanics is nice, but complete disregard for them is something completely different to innovation.

This I can agree with 100%. The combination of strategy and then combat was excellent in DAA (Awakening) and almost as good in DAO. DA2 is more of a console button masher as somebody mentioned, IMO.

As far as the open world goes, I prefer an expansive canvas with lots of choices as to where to go/what to do next, but not quite as freeform as say Dungeon Siege 2, where depending on what order you choose to do things cuts out lots of other choices IIRC. IOW, there has to be some balance between too linear and free-form. I thought NWN had a good balance as well, and that's what DAO reminded me of when I first played it. DA2 reminds me more of Torchlight - much more limited choices, much more hack & slash. While I like TL, it doesn't have any pretensions of being some classic RPG either..

Finally, the conversations in DAO (esp. the comments made by Shale) were entertaining. Not so much in DA2..

 

[bystander]

Out of curiosity, those who feel that DA2 was more hack and slash, did you play the console version, or the PC version? Playing the PC version at max difficulty, I felt like DA2 required a lot more strategy to win at the highest difficulty than DAO did. DAO was pretty easy to play at max level, DA2 require a lot better builds and strategy to make it work.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Out of curiosity, those who feel that DA2 was more hack and slash, did you play the console version, or the PC version? Playing the PC version at max difficulty, I felt like DA2 required a lot more strategy to win at the highest difficulty than DAO did. DAO was pretty easy to play at max level, DA2 require a lot better builds and strategy to make it work.

+1

 

[AntiZig]

I played the PC version. And reason it required more strategy and teamwork is because the mechanics got numbed down, where you were forced to sit there for 30 seconds and auto-attack while waiting for cooldowns (I'm exaggerating but the main idea is the same). While you're waiting for said cooldowns, you have to rely on usable items or positioning on utility to avoid damage, block damage, prevent aoe casts, disable, etc. It wasn't such a big problem in DAO because in DAO spells carried a lot more significant effects and those skills is what drove the battle. In DAO you could chain the stuns/disables and have a few short cooldown spells for iterrupts or saves or similar. You had similar effects in DA2, however, a lot of effects came from inter-class combos, which means to get some effect you had to waste 2 available skills instead of one. Plus the cooldowns being longer and AOE skills not dealing as much damage as they used to in DAO meant that once you dropped those skills unless you comboed them for extra effects you wasted mana/cooldown. So in the end you were left with autoattacking for damage rather than using abilities.

I think another contributing point was that DAA, they added a lot of new abilities that did more damage than the original ones which were already quite powerful, trivialising content (basically think as if you were playing the MMO, you outleveled the content and it's no longer challenging because you can kill everything with one skill). While also in DA2 enemies got a bit smarter, I know thieves would actually by pass a tank or rogue and go after a mage, even though the first two were closer to them.

 

[bystander]

I definitely sense a theme. You like to play an active Mage, and I understand that, as I do too. However, like so many other games these days, they've kind of been going towards balancing the 3 arch types these days, so that they are all similarly active.

Also, like you, I felt that the direct damage spells were weak in DA2, though that was somewhat true for all the classes, but for mages, it feels more out of place to be forced into using combos as the soul way to be affective. The bright side for me is that I also enjoy playing the mage as a crowd control specialist, and used my rogue as the super powerful killer. However, I believe you were missing out on some of your combo setups. I found the Tank shield bash and Rogues cloud stuff (forget exact names) were good setups, and saved my mage spells for finishing AE combos, or crowd control.

 

[AntiZig]

Ahh, also, another thing I missed in GW2 - arcane warrior. It was a magnificent specialization, in some battles I literally only had my AW left standing.

 

[bystander]

Ahh, also, another thing I missed in GW2 - arcane warrior. It was a magnificent specialization, in some battles I literally only had my AW left standing.

I think you meant DA2. I had a similar feeling to my dual wielding duelist rogue. He was a great tank, aside from not being able to taunt. In DA2, they decided to prevent anything but a tank from attacking while being attacked, which I definitely was not a fan of.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Heh, have to admit rogue is my favorite class in Dragon Age - nothing like being able to take out or seriously damage the highest enemy in a group, stand off and take out the remainders for a while, engage in a bit of hand-to-hand when my tank croaks, then run away and go stealthy to heal and regroup. Doesn't work with level 1 bosses like the dragons but then there are quirks in the game that you can take advantage of to gradually wear them down.

 

[AntiZig]

oh I remembered another thing on my drive back from work. The fact that you cannot change/equip your companion armor. Considering you could equip everybody in your party with whatever you wanted, that was a huge step down and a clear budget cut.

 

[bystander]

oh I remembered another thing on my drive back from work. The fact that you cannot change/equip your companion armor. Considering you could equip everybody in your party with whatever you wanted, that was a huge step down and a clear budget cut.

I thought they chose that so that your companions had a special look, and didn't get changed due to adding armor on them.

 

[AntiZig]

that is a veiled excuse to "we didn't have time/money to do it right"

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

oh I remembered another thing on my drive back from work. The fact that you cannot change/equip your companion armor. Considering you could equip everybody in your party with whatever you wanted, that was a huge step down and a clear budget cut.

+1 That's so true!!! How could I forget about that.

 

[cats_Paw]

It is actually hard to add anything to the huge amount of details you guys have mentioned. The most interesting thing is that if we add up all those negative coments, its actually a long list.
So i am not surprised that so many people were dissapointed by DA2, since it could "fail" on so many angles.