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[Confidence Man]

Explain. I got 16 talents per "focus", 4 talents per specialization, and I end the game around lvl 25.

I can simply take every twohander talent if I use twohanders, every SnS talent if I use SnS, and so on. It's not like I got hybrid talents or stuff like that.

Sure, I have specialization focused builds, but that only matters for Arcane warriors.
The most funny thing is, when you feel like "well, ok, all Archers are the same, but a warrior can be an archer, a tank, a dual wielder or a 2h user, now that's variety!" you find out the rogue shares 2 of those trees too.

This stuff is just incredibly bad. I may be biased, I'm an RPG buff and I probably used close to a hundred of PnP systems over time, but coming out with something so bad as DA:O's is an achievement in itself.

I'm not sure how DA2 offers anything more.

As a two-hander, for example, DA2 has only three attacks. The bulk of it's abilities are buffs and bonuses which don't impart any real difference to how two characters of the same class would play.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I'm honestly surprised of the bolded, and I would be very interested in hearing more about it, and yes, I disagree, but notice I'm not calling people hypocrites because they liked DA:O. I'm calling people hypocrites because (and I'm not necessarily referring to you) because I've read a few hundred posts reading "Good god reused assets / bad story / predictable plot / dumbed down system / stupid, mashy combat / etc" followed by "Btw DA:O rocked".

The two games are extremely similar, and putting one on an alter and the other in the mud is unexaplainable to me. We can leave it at that, with me being puzzled and you thinking I'm too dumb to see, or if you want we could discuss why we disagree, without necessarily breaking out a fight, and that would be a lot more interesting to me.

I honestly don't think this can be discussed because I find your fundamental premise flawed.

You think games need to be broken down to objective markers of what's right and what's wrong. DA2's incomplete nature amplified its flaws to the point where, even if they were basically the same in Dragon Age 1, they damaged the game as a whole in the sequel.

DA2 was a bad game that made the shared flaws scarring.

DA1 was a good game - a game a lot of people enjoyed - where flaws were overcome by things they liked.

I don't think your premise of a white board list that shows shared flaws between the two can actually be discussed when you think it's the end all, be all of an opinion-based entertainment medium. I hated DA2, I loved DA1, and I played both games to completion. There is literally nothing to say except that sometimes things work out that way, where something you find deeply flawed is still overall well liked by other people. There's no discussion to be had there. Ultimately some things bother you more than they bother others and even more ultimately, those same things could become issues when put in a different context, like a poor sequel.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I'll get into more detail:

DA2 is a bad game. It shows some good intent, and some good ideas, but it brings almost nothing to a satisfying end. At its best, it's incomplete. At its worst, it's just unimaginative and goofy.

DA:O is turd. It's the McDonald of roleplaying games. It takes every clichè the fantasy genre has ever seen, strips it down of any charm or pathos, and crams it into a game that doesn't have even one inch of soul or brain.
It's RPGing for Dummies to the extreme consequences, crafting a character system that gives you 16 talents per build and nearly 30 talents per character, not allowing the smallest degree of customization. It also makes sure that if you're completely, absolutely stupid and completely screw up your character in some way (like, taking archery talents and equipping a 2h), the system scaling will be so bland and pointless that the difference between the worse character and the best one will be next to nonexistant. You're dealing 10 damage with an arrow at lvl 8, you're dealing 40 on the final boss exploiting its weakness. There's no system mastery, no scaling and no idea behind the system (something DA2 massively improves).
More importantly, the game makes sure it can cater to the lowest common denominator both by introducing a choice system that is based around the concept that you win no matter what, and also by producing a story and cast that make Twilight seem deep.
The entire damn plot of DA:O is told in 4 scenes. Everything else is subquests. It doesn't help that this plot is the most unimaginative load of bullshit to ever grace fantasy fiction. Once again, DA:O mimics the staples of the genre with such lazyness and such creative bankrupcy that it comes off as a parody. If DA:O was a movie, it would be the Wayans brothers take on Lord of the Rings.

It's not like it does nothing better than 2; there's a lot of peripheral aspects that are more polished or expanded. On the other hand, it reuses assets in a more aggressive and violent way than DA2 does, albeit possibly more subtle. But still it boggles the mind to see people act surprised by the amount of asset reuse seen in DA2, when DA:O used the exact same tileset for every single dungeon ingame (be it the Fade, Elven ruins, a Human fortress, the mage tower, or whatever) and has every single random encounter or sub quest take place in a couple of constantly reused brown fields of crap.

So in short, yes, DA2 is bad, in a "this needed more time, and ideas, and creativity, and good will" way. DA:O is, instead, horribly bad, in a "this is the finely chiseled parody of everything good about fantasy, a game that is aggressively attempting to be as bad as it can at everything it does".


So, yes, I guess I don't really like Origins. It's partly one of the reasons I didn't hate DA2 as much as everyone else. Compared to the first game, it's an epiphany.

While DA:O did have a fairly generic setting and story, I enjoyed the lore of Thedas. You might call it unimaginative, and that would be fair, but it was quite enjoyable to me. It was fun to progress through the story and interact with the characters, making decisions that sometimes had real consequences on your story. Obviously, an appreciation of lore and story is completely subjective, but I'm a sucker for medieval fantasy, and I appreciated the amount of work that went into creating Thedas and its lore.

Anyway, comparing DA:O's reuse of tile sets (textures) to DA2's egregious copy+paste job of entire dungeons (layout and all) is a bit much.

I do agree that DA2 improves on meaningful talent tree customization over the first game for Warriors and Rogues, but I prefer the way Mages were handled in the first game. I pretty much dislike everything else about the combat changes, though.

No no, what I'm saying is that people has all the reasons to think DA2 is bad. It's FULL of flaws. I just think that it probably takes a lot more flak than comparable games (in terms of quality) do, for reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself (from pissing off PC gamers to EA to ludicrous DLC policies). That's what I mean with "love to hate": people wanted it to fail even before it was out, and when it came out and there was plenty of reasons to bash it... it was probably too good to be true.

However, I still think it's unexplainable how the same people who call DA2 terrible can call DA:O even passable. Or just bad. As flawed as it is, DA2 is a shining beacon of quality compared to Origins.

The same can be said of Dragon Age: Origins with its ridiculously awful ad campaign and pre-order bonus DLC bullshit. I remember the pre-release consensus of DA:O being rather negative, but it mostly took a 180 degree turn after release.

 

[Reigan]

Hey guys yesterday I brought DA2 on steam however everytime I try to launch the game it gives the following error.

Runtime Error!

Program: e:\program files\steam\s...

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an
unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Really don’t know how to fix this as my pc is definitely powerful enough to run the game and is running other games fine.

Any help from you smart people will be greatly appreciated.

 

[VisanidethDM]

I don't think your premise of a white board list that shows shared flaws between the two can actually be discussed when you think it's the end all, be all of an opinion-based entertainment medium. I hated DA2, I loved DA1, and I played both games to completion. There is literally nothing to say except that sometimes things work out that way, where something you find deeply flawed is still overall well liked by other people. There's no discussion to be had there. Ultimately some things bother you more than they bother others and even more ultimately, those same things could become issues when put in a different context, like a poor sequel.

Or a poor original game. It's a strong point, yours, however, and it's more or less my exact same perspective. Only that I could forgive DA2's flaws more in the light of the actual attempt to have some sort of original content, and the context in which it was created, and the will to address some of the underachievements of the first.

And I can't forgive the same flaws in Origins, because of the insanely short main plot, its stupidity and its lack of ambition as one of the most bland "evil is stirring" tired clichès in videogame history. Again, you're perfectly right when you refer to context, as I think the reason I absolutely loathe DA:O is its lazyness and blind attempt at cater to the widest audience possible by trying to create the dumbest megamix of fantasy clichès I've seen (from King Arthur to LotR to Wheel of Time to basically everything every written on the subject).

It's probably better if we don't clutter the forum with pointless discussions about what are ultimately tastes. I beg you to notice, however, that if there's one guy who's addressed as crazy or stupid or blind for liking one game more than the other, it's me. Check the previous page.

 

[VisanidethDM]

While DA:O did have a fairly generic setting and story, I enjoyed the lore of Thedas. You might call it unimaginative, and that would be fair, but it was quite enjoyable to me. It was fun to progress through the story and interact with the characters, making decisions that sometimes had real consequences on your story. Obviously, an appreciation of lore and story is completely subjective, but I'm a sucker for medieval fantasy, and I appreciated the amount of work that went into creating Thedas and its lore.

I really can't answer to the bolded; I mean, it's great, and it justifies itself. You had fun, you win.

On the rest, I could digress on how I find the choice system aggravating for "lore" reasons - I'm not exactly a Bioware fan, and one of the things I really dislike about their games is the "10 minutes into the game, you're given the Mary Sue title and you become a god among men" mechanic. I think Origins took this to the excessive consequences.

Spoiler

I can understand being given free access to the dwarven town when ambassadors of the current ruler of the land aren't because you're the Warden; I can understand exacting some authority on supernatural creatures like spirits and treants. But going through being given the right to name the Dwarven king after I spent 4 hours pretending to believe dwarves are too stuck up to traditions to be reasonable, and they're being thorn apart by a loyality war, and they're willing to send their children to starve in the name of that, but I'M THE WARDEN so they'll do what I say is too much. It gets worse and worse as the game goes on (you're given the power to decide genocides at points), and it culminates in the incredibly offensive Landsmeet scene, that can play out more or less like "Ok ok, the traitor dies, and Alister is king... no no wait, the princess becomes queen... screw that, they marry and both rule. Ok, not fine? Cool, Alister dies, and I marry the princess, and I'm the King. Deal with it, I'm the fucking Warden".
Thanks. You pulled me out of the game and made me facedesk over and over. I understand this is harsh, because there's people who liked this, and it comes off as offensive to them but... DA:O just felt really, really stupid. It felt like a really annoying and ugly girl hell bent on giving you a blowjob every time you turned in a new direction. The drama for me was completely spoiled by the fact that every scene ended with me going Populous and playing God. Meh, rant over.

And yes, I'm a fantasy buff too and some things in DA:O were just geek porn. The LotR inspired architecture was just fantastic to look at, expecially in Redcliff and the later chapter in the capital.

 

[IoCaster]

It's not about texures. Next time you play DA:O, put an eye at doorways in different environments like say, Andraste's temple, the elven ruins, the dwarven ruins and so on. And I'm sure you were as puzzled as me in seeing that EVERY field in the game had ruins coming out of the ground, and so on. Tile/asset reuse is as aggressive in DA:O than it was in DA2 - just more subtle (probably cause they had more time to cover it).

I don't know if you're being deliberately disingenuous or not, but most of the complaints are about the ~7-9 maps that were constantly reused for quests. There were more unique locations in the "A Paragon of Her Kind" quest in DA:O than in the entirety of DA2.

There was also a better structured and nuanced political subplot in that quest. The choices that the player gets to make and the consequences of those decisions far outstrip the meaningless non-choice of Templars vs Mages in DA2. That's just ~20% of the main plot content in DA:O.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I really can't answer to the bolded; I mean, it's great, and it justifies itself. You had fun, you win.

On the rest, I could digress on how I find the choice system aggravating for "lore" reasons - I'm not exactly a Bioware fan, and one of the things I really dislike about their games is the "10 minutes into the game, you're given the Mary Sue title and you become a god among men" mechanic. I think Origins took this to the excessive consequences.

Spoiler

I can understand being given free access to the dwarven town when ambassadors of the current ruler of the land aren't because you're the Warden; I can understand exacting some authority on supernatural creatures like spirits and treants. But going through being given the right to name the Dwarven king after I spent 4 hours pretending to believe dwarves are too stuck up to traditions to be reasonable, and they're being thorn apart by a loyality war, and they're willing to send their children to starve in the name of that, but I'M THE WARDEN so they'll do what I say is too much. It gets worse and worse as the game goes on (you're given the power to decide genocides at points), and it culminates in the incredibly offensive Landsmeet scene, that can play out more or less like "Ok ok, the traitor dies, and Alister is king... no no wait, the princess becomes queen... screw that, they marry and both rule. Ok, not fine? Cool, Alister dies, and I marry the princess, and I'm the King. Deal with it, I'm the fucking Warden".
Thanks. You pulled me out of the game and made me facedesk over and over. I understand this is harsh, because there's people who liked this, and it comes off as offensive to them but... DA:O just felt really, really stupid. It felt like a really annoying and ugly girl hell bent on giving you a blowjob every time you turned in a new direction. The drama for me was completely spoiled by the fact that every scene ended with me going Populous and playing God. Meh, rant over.

And yes, I'm a fantasy buff too and some things in DA:O were just geek porn. The LotR inspired architecture was just fantastic to look at, expecially in Redcliff and the later chapter in the capital.

I totally agree with the ridiculousness of the parts in your spoiler section. That shit was stupid, and those weren't the only lame bits, but there was also a lot of cool stuff that made the game for me. I loved my Human Noble's intro, Ostagar, the stuff in Lothering, the Redcliffe story arc with the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest, the Circle Tower (and the fade, although most seem to hate it), and the Dalish Elf/Werewolf stuff in the Brecilian Forest, going into Denerim and getting my revenge on Arl Renden Howe. All of those, and the side quests associated with them, were damn good fun in my opinion. Orzammar was weak and its story unbelievable (although I enjoyed the dungeon crawl part of the Deep Roads and the Golem stuff), and I wasn't satisfied with how the Landsmeet and the final battle turned out, but that wasn't enough to sour me on the other 40+ hours of highly enjoyable content I played through.

That's my main problem with Dragon Age 2. It's story stinks. I love the premise, but it's not fleshed out at all and you it's like all of the interesting bits happen in the interlude cut scenes. If the story kept me interested and eager to see more, instead of just being a confusing mess of shit just randomly happening with little justification, the game's other major flaws wouldn't have been so apparent.

edit: I just remembered something that really annoyed me: In Dragon Age: Origins, it was a bit ridiculous to give you the choice to

Spoiler

become King and take rule Ferelden, but in Dragon Age 2 they don't even give you the choice to take over Kirkwall even though it was completely justified. After the Viscount dies and the Templars/Mages vie for control, you get a dialog option at the beginning of chapter 3 to offer to rule Kirkwall, but it just gets shot down. As the ultimate badass "champion" who saved the city single-handedly, you totally should have had the option to take over the town in place of the mages and Templars.

It didn't make sense in DA:O where they gave you the choice, but in DA2, where it would have made sense, you aren't even allowed the option.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

This thread is still raging huh?

I'd just like to chime in again being at about the early parts of Act 3, and as someone who beat the shit out of DA:O (on PC), and say that I'm still really enjoying it. Probably more than the first actually. I think the characters are a lot better and their individual stories are more interesting and better explored. The main plot (which honestly in a Bioware game, I think isn't nearly as important as the character stories are) is more interesting and less generic. I really don't mind that it seems like a side story considering my Grey Warden in the first game

Spoiler

sacrificed himself to kill the Archdemon

. Plus it makes those few cameos and references to the first game resonate more. Maybe it also helps that I'm playing a sarcastic rogue here as opposed to my super heroic Grey Warden. The combat is exponentially more fun (on hard at least). The constant pop in waves of enemies can get annoying and tedious at times but I'm never not having fun taking them down.

Yeah, the copy pasta sucks and there are certain areas that are definitely rushed and weird but whatever. I really didn't enjoy the first as much as I'm enjoying this.

 

[VisanidethDM]

It didn't make sense in DA:O where they gave you the choice, but in DA2, where it would have made sense, you aren't even allowed the option.

It's the same developer, after all. Bioware never really got the idea of choice right in my opinion.

As for the rest, I admit DA2's story had me more interested. It's messy, but to me the setting worked.
Probably because 2010 was the year Dark Sun was released again for D&D, and Kirkwall has much of it (both in the Templar/Mages mechanics, and in the archytectures), and also because in my opinion, DA2 got party mechanics right. Yes, setting down in a city was somewhat claustrophobic in a genre that thrives on epic journeys, but the adventuring felt natural and your party felt like an actual group of people. Compared to DA:O's

Spoiler

Sauron is coming, so you need to go and decide kings for people, but don't worry, there's King Arthur in your party

drudgery, it actually had me wondering what would happen next (probably because of the frame narrative, and how events wouldn't necessarily seem tied at first, and come together in the end).
Once again DA2 was tainted by terrible execution, but the idea behind DA2 is infinitely superior to the copypasta work that DA:O was.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

It's the same developer, after all. Bioware never really got the idea of choice right in my opinion.

As for the rest, I admit DA2's story had me more interested. It's messy, but to me the setting worked.
Probably because 2010 was the year Dark Sun was released again for D&D, and Kirkwall has much of it (both in the Templar/Mages mechanics, and in the archytectures), and also because in my opinion, DA2 got party mechanics right. Yes, setting down in a city was somewhat claustrophobic in a genre that thrives on epic journeys, but the adventuring felt natural and your party felt like an actual group of people. Compared to DA:O's

Spoiler

Sauron is coming, so you need to go and decide kings for people, but don't worry, there's King Arthur in your party

drudgery, it actually had me wondering what would happen next (probably because of the frame narrative, and how events wouldn't necessarily seem tied at first, and come together in the end).
Once again DA2 was tainted by terrible execution, but the idea behind DA2 is infinitely superior to the copypasta work that DA:O was.

I'm not gonna argue with that. I was extremely excited when it was announced that Dragon Age 2 would take place over 10 years and show how The Champion rose from rags to riches.

Unfortunately, you don't get to actually play any of that. You didn't get to play through those 10 years and make meaningful choices. The way they handled the passage of time in DA2 was abysmal.

 

[EvaTType01]

DLC question - browsing the xbox marketplace and noticed a da2 dlc item pack?!? since this is dlc and i already passed da2 with all classes, is there a use for this I'm not seeing? its not like i can buy the dlc and then visit old places, since the post-game save file really doesn't let you access any dungeon/place whatsoever....

 

[HadesGigas]

DLC question - browsing the xbox marketplace and noticed a da2 dlc item pack?!? since this is dlc and i already passed da2 with all classes, is there a use for this I'm not seeing? its not like i can buy the dlc and then visit old places, since the post-game save file really doesn't let you access any dungeon/place whatsoever....

Maybe once there's quest DLC, but quest DLC probably will come with new loot itself.

 

[Gvaz]

I disagree with that. To me, DA2 was the superior game by a sensible margin - and it's not really meant to be a compliment to 2.

DA:O is better, as it's a hommage to much better, much older games. Though it's more like a swan song than a sequel of such games.

DA2 is like an inbred cousin of that dying swan, there isn't anything redeemable about it at all.

 

[VisanidethDM]

DA:O is better, as it's a hommage to much better, much older games. Though it's more like a swan song than a sequel of such games.

DA2 is like an inbred cousin of that dying swan, there isn't anything redeemable about it at all.

I tend to see DA:O as the deformed, dumb brother of said games, but we're going in circles here, trying to decide which game is the worst. I prefer the one who did something of its own (and failed), than the one that copied everything and anything and managed to make the awesome look terrible. But it's a matter of tastes, and we're never gonna agree.

 

[Gvaz]

I tend to see DA:O as the deformed, dumb brother of said games, but we're going in circles here, trying to decide which game is the worst. I prefer the one who did something of its own (and failed), than the one that copied everything and anything and managed to make the awesome look terrible. But it's a matter of tastes, and we're never gonna agree.

mmm I suppose. I do agree that while DA:O is a hommage to such games like BG or IWD or perhaps even PS:T (which I love), it's not those games. I'm okay with that.

I think DA:O is still flawed, mostly in the combat feels too slow and clunky. But, to me, nothing justifies DA2 when you have DA:O sitting around.

Sure the combat is faster, but the mechanics are exactly the same so it changes nothing. Sure the art style is different, but that changes nothing. Stuck in the same city for 40 hours, repeating zones shamelessly and simply edited, lack of a tactical approach to anything (pausing and droppin a spell on your mage while your tank does an aoe is not the same as setting up a situation )

But anyways, these are more words than I wish to spend on da2

 

[VisanidethDM]

Sure the combat is faster, but the mechanics are exactly the same so it changes nothing. Sure the art style is different, but that changes nothing.

This is a couple points that I can't be too cynical about, in all honesty.

I feel there's some good in DA2 in terms of character building, if we look in the perspective on non-D&D based Bioware games. Compared to ME and DA:O, DA2 had an extremely complex and flexible system. You can respecc a 2h warrior several times (playing around massive strike damage Vanguard setup with a mix of Reaver, going for an unkillable 2h tank or for an haste based Zerk that spamms autoattack) and get different results and different playstyles. Yes, it's drowned in a huge mass of failures and shortcomings, but I think for Bioware it's a noble attempt. It's the best combat system in a non-D&D Bioware game for sure, and while I understand it's easy to overlook this fact in the name of everything that is goddamn wrong with DA2, it's something to consider.

On the art style, I felt the game had some personality. There were some colossal failures (like the Darkspawn redesign, which is terrible in stills, but the moment you see those things move it reaches a new level of idiocy), but as someone who navigates through fantasy material every day, Kirkwall stood out as something with an identity.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

Are you honestly typing all of this with a straight face ? So DA2 is a better game ? Being stuck in one place is better ? I respect your opinion but it's really rather unpopular and I think you're alone in this.

And the difficulty in DAO scales with your level according to Bioware.

OK, IDK what more I can say. I didn't finish DAO. I finished DA2. And yes I play all my games on PC. I dont own a console. I am not campaigning for some wierd popularity contest, i dont care. This post was in response to a guy who was enjoying DA2, but was worried about what others were saying about this game.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

Are you honestly typing all of this with a straight face ? So DA2 is a better game ? Being stuck in one place is better ? I respect your opinion but it's really rather unpopular and I think you're alone in this.

And the difficulty in DAO scales with your level according to Bioware.

Also, I dont really care about according to Bioware... I don't know what the hell they meant back then because it doesn't. You would know that if you did the elf or dwarf quest in the beginning, which you obviously didnt.

 

[Sir Garbageman]

I really enjoyed both and found both fun yet flawed for different reasons. Just like Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, hopefully the third entry in the series meets somewhere in the middle.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

Fair enough. But DA:O is still the better game and had a lot of potential. DA2 basically pissed all over that potential and made it worse.

Here again... so many comments. I get the hate against DA2 somewhat. I have similar complaints.. though I found the game to be more of a flawed gem, rather than a turd.

But I am yet to see the rational arguments for DAO being better... I am sorry, for simply not being good at skimming through comments.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

You can have waves of enemies without having them pop into existance next to a wall in a tactically unpredictable position


Anyway, the main *shared* concerns with dragon age 2 are basically these:

1. Enemy respawning out of nowhere in the middle of your party
2. re-using of maps
3. Some minor interface quibbles
4. Inconsistancy in Anders' characterization given that he was a favorite in Awakening

Pretty much everything else is a "yeah well I LIKE THAT PART" thing that'll just lead to pointless bickering.

I agree with that. I didn't play awakening so I wasn't really pissed about finding anders a whiny bitch. The enemy respawning thing didn't bother me that much as well. maybe they should have had them spawn at different points rather than at the exact same point. The only thing that made me mad was reusing of maps. But I really liked the gameplay and the story, and the way the world was presented this time around, so I ended up liking the game more than hating it.

 

[Patryn]

Here again... so many comments. I get the hate against DA2 somewhat. I have similar complaints.. though I found the game to be more of a flawed gem, rather than a turd.

But I am yet to see the rational arguments for DAO being better... I am sorry, for simply not being good at skimming through comments.

1.) More expansive world
2.) Barring Varric, better companions (Shale, Alistair, Sten, etc.)
3.) More tactical combat
4.) Sidequests with more depth than find object A, give to person B
5.) Greater moral depth
6.) Greater variety of environments
7.) No cheap enemy spawns

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

1.) More expansive world
2.) Barring Varric, better companions (Shale, Alistair, Sten, etc.)
3.) More tactical combat
4.) Sidequests with more depth than find object A, give to person B
5.) Greater moral depth
6.) Greater variety of environments
7.) No cheap enemy spawns

Dude.

Alistair was a guy who needed constant praise or he would cry... so there. I liked shale because everytime you took him in your party he had something interesting to say. That is something I can't say about any other character from DAO, and I can say that about almost every character from DA2 (except anders..). Also I liked Hawke way better than the warden.

Bioware has never done moral depth well. It does shit moral depth.. except in KOTOR... morality is bioware games is like finding your rolex in the toilet bowl. You just dont expect it. Each of the 3 acts in DA2 have multiple endings depending on your choice, so I don't know what you are talking about. The best morality based game I ever played was the witcher. That simply blows anything bioware ever did out of the planet.

Cheap enemy respawns didn't really bother me. What is more important to me is the tools given to you to dispatch said enemies. zip around, use spectacular spells or just thump them or all. This is again something I didn't see in DAO. every party member is just a reflection of the other.

Dragon age 2 had excellent secondary quests, while DAO had everything under the sun labelled as side quests. Also I felt the character specific quests were actually of much higher quality in DA2, where these people had reasonable motivation to join you rather than "lets get together and save the world" cliches of DAO. "Oh you know, we have to save the world and all but can we just go all the way back to flemeth's hut and kill her." Also, DAO had plenty of lets find A and give it to B quests.

I have already written a decent sized post about why I liked DA2's gameplay mechanics better and I found DA2's presentation of the world better, so I won't go there. Other than that, the only things about DAO better than DA2 is lack of copy pasta dungeons, longer and slightly higher degree of polish.

 

[HadesGigas]

Here again... so many comments. I get the hate against DA2 somewhat. I have similar complaints.. though I found the game to be more of a flawed gem, rather than a turd.

But I am yet to see the rational arguments for DAO being better... I am sorry, for simply not being good at skimming through comments.

DAO has a plot. DA2 has a guy (or gal) who wanders around a city while crazy people do nonsensical things.

There are plenty of other things I feel DAO does better, but that's the one that matters the most to me.

 

[SpartanDL]

Having a lot of fun with Dragon Age 2 actually. I like it better than the first one. However my save overwrited, so i have to start over again.

 

[THRILLH0]

There's not much that's more entertaining than people arguing which of the games they've invested dozens and dozens of hours into is "the bigger turd".

 

[EDarkness]

Dude.

Alistair was a guy who needed constant praise or he would cry... so there. I liked shale because everytime you took him in your party he had something interesting to say. That is something I can't say about any other character from DAO, and I can say that about almost every character from DA2 (except anders..). Also I liked Hawke way better than the warden.

Bioware has never done moral depth well. It does shit moral depth.. except in KOTOR... morality is bioware games is like finding your rolex in the toilet bowl. You just dont expect it. Each of the 3 acts in DA2 have multiple endings depending on your choice, so I don't know what you are talking about. The best morality based game I ever played was the witcher. That simply blows anything bioware ever did out of the planet.

Cheap enemy respawns didn't really bother me. What is more important to me is the tools given to you to dispatch said enemies. zip around, use spectacular spells or just thump them or all. This is again something I didn't see in DAO. every party member is just a reflection of the other.

Dragon age 2 had excellent secondary quests, while DAO had everything under the sun labelled as side quests. Also I felt the character specific quests were actually of much higher quality in DA2, where these people had reasonable motivation to join you rather than "lets get together and save the world" cliches of DAO. "Oh you know, we have to save the world and all but can we just go all the way back to flemeth's hut and kill her." Also, DAO had plenty of lets find A and give it to B quests.

I have already written a decent sized post about why I liked DA2's gameplay mechanics better and I found DA2's presentation of the world better, so I won't go there. Other than that, the only things about DAO better than DA2 is lack of copy pasta dungeons, longer and slightly higher degree of polish.

There's no need to try and convince you which game is "better". You've already made up your mind. Okay, you like Dragon Age 2. Great. However, you also need to understand that there are other people out there who don't like it at all and for many different reasons.

In my opinion, the first game was much better. I like "saving the world" stories. Games are fantasy and an escape from real life, and fantastical things are what we come to expect in high fantasy settings. Both games have plenty of unrealistic things. Especially if you're a mage. In the first game at least it makes sense because the main character is a Warden and generally above the law. In the second game, when you first reach the city, you help some guard and spells are flying around everywhere. I mean, no one even thought to turn Hawke in right there? So yeah, nonsensical stuff is everywhere in both games. However, while I enjoyed the pacing of the combat better, I thought the story, loot, not being able to "dress" your guys...but telling them which weapon or accessory to use is okay, blatantly recycled maps, the small scope, and lack of big things going on to be bad points and bad enough to color my experience of the game to be overall negative. I understand that there are lots of people out there who didn't have a problem with those things, but for me they just made me think DA2 was some sort of cash in instead of a continuation of the story and themes they setup in the first game.

The other thing was that I was more of a fan of The Warden than Hawke. Hawke was cool in his own way, but The Warden was just a straight up badass. Maybe that's a little superficial, but when playing these kinds of games, I'm more inclined to go with the guy who has a lot of pull and his own set of problems, but is ultimately Superman. Hawke didn't have any grand mission or serious problems to overcome and really seemed like a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is why I hope they bring The Warden back in the next game. I just connected much better with him than with Hawke.

 

[Brandon F]

Just hit Act III, I'm starting to come around to the 'dissenter' side of the argument the farther I play. As Hawke moves up in the world, I find my interest in the plotting waning. I see clearly where this narrative will ultimately now end up, but am just unclear on the specific beats that will take it there. I'm keeping an open mind, but after 40 hours thus far, I am feeling drained. Hopefully there is enough to Act III to reignite my interest.

Combat is now just tedious, given my relatively ability and equipment. Higher difficulties just make most fights longer than necessary, and the respawns are a real problem now. WAY too much fodder(which truly does work against any player tactics and lore competency).

I do really enjoy the characters, almost everyone more than in DA:O. The specific companion quests are mostly fantastic and are largely my favorite part of the game. I also enjoy Hawke, or rather MY version of him. Many of the snarky responses are amusing, and when I do choose the polarized responses, they rarely come across as being irrationally sound.

I do wish my choices were more impactful however. Too often I will make major decisions only to find NONE of my party members had any input on said choice. They perk up when I do their specific companion quests, but most often they seem to look upon my outside influence with dumb blank stares if it isn't personally involving to them. And of course the choices matter little in the long-term anyhow.

I'll see if anything changes in Act III now. Up to this point, it's a pretty average game from Bioware. Jade Empire probably still remains the least competent of their titles, but DA:O and DA2 each are pretty equally flawed with uniquely solid qualities.

 

[Yurt]

Also, I dont really care about according to Bioware... I don't know what the hell they meant back then because it doesn't. You would know that if you did the elf or dwarf quest in the beginning, which you obviously didnt.

I did. I completed the game 3-4 times on various difficulty levels.

Challenge Scaling
Bioware's challenge scaling system is meant to enable players to visit various areas of Dragon Age: Origins in a non-linear order as they prefer by automatically adjusting the levels of enemies encountered in the area to match the overall level of the player's party. However, to prevent complaints about similar scaling systems in other games (such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion), Bioware has added lower- and upper-level limits to how far the enemies will scale in any one area. The net result is that it's entirely possible to visit some areas at too low of a level and therefore find the challenge you face to be inordinately difficult because your party strength is lower level than the lower-limit of the challenge scaling for that area. Conversely, it's also possible to visit some areas at too high of a level and therefore find the entire area not even remotely challenging, because your party strength by then is higher level than the upper-limit of the challenge scaling for that area

Oh and

Oh you know, we have to save the world and all but can we just go all the way back to flemeth's hut and kill her

One of your companions/lover was about to be consumed/killed. And looking at the outcome of the end I say saving Morrigan was vital.

 

[VisanidethDM]

There's not much that's more entertaining than people arguing which of the games they've invested dozens and dozens of hours into is "the bigger turd".

You need to realize that if you like fantasy party based RPGs, it's fundamentally Dragon Age or GoG/PS(X<3) titles.

 

[Gvaz]

Yeah there isn't much choice because the general public doesn't like this kind of game. those who do like it, are upset at how bad it is and how low bioware went, who is usually good for quality releases

 

[VisanidethDM]

Yeah there isn't much choice because the general public doesn't like this kind of game. those who do like it, are upset at how bad it is and how low bioware went, who is usually good for quality releases

I think Bioware always benefitted from the fact that competition was incredibly limited in the genre. Bethesda/etc have stuck to single player action RPGs for ages, and nobody put up competition elsewhere (even the hyperhyped The Witcher 2 is an action RPG). Bioware games were never good, they were simply the best in the genre for lack of competition. Personally I find DA2 an high point in their production, expecially coming from the disasterous Origins and the action game experience of ME1/2.

 

[Yurt]

Personally I find DA2 an high point in their production, expecially coming from the disasterous Origins and the action game experience of ME1/2.

HAHA..thanks for that.

 

[Gvaz]

I wouldn't say DA:O was disastrous at all, that's definitely not the word that comes to mind anyways.

 

[VisanidethDM]

I wouldn't say DA:O was disastrous at all, that's definitely not the word that comes to mind anyways.

I hate it with a passion. On top of its technical and design deficiencies, it's also a very cynical game. I hate corporate-inspired projects.

At some point I'll stop going over how bad it is, but I used to root for Juventus and I like to make the Del Piero guy laugh.

 

[Xilium]

I hate it with a passion. On top of its technical and design deficiencies, it's also a very cynical game. I hate corporate-inspired projects.

And yet you like DA2...?

Frankly, all Bioware makes now is "corporate-inspired projects". They've made no secret of their wanting to appeal to the broadest possible audience and in the current market, that means appealing to the shooter (FPS/TPS) and hero-action demographics and it shows in their recent releases.

As far as DA:O is concerned, I think it was just too ambitious for its own good. It tried to do too much at once and did none of it particularly great but I prefer and better appreciate games that at least attempt to live up to it's design ideals. DA2 is an overall more polished game but everything about the game is half-assed. DA2 managed to take one of the most interesting conflicts from the first game and just make a complete mockery out of it and their morality systems seem to get worse and worse with each new game release.

From what I'm reading about ME3, I don't have much hope of DA3 being any better than DA2. I tried to give the WRPG a better chance but it's one of the only genres that seems completely unsatisfied with itself and is trying desperately to become something else.

 

[VisanidethDM]

And yet you like DA2...?

No, I simply like it more than DA:O.
On this point specifically, DA2 is sort of a mish-mash of ideas (some good, some awful), and something that feels like some dudes sat down and thought: "OK, we need to invent something this time".

DA:O was like "OK, we got Lord of the Ring, shit's popular, now tits and ass are covered, we need a Gimli lookalike and well, of course, some bs reason to put dragons in the main plot. Song of Ice and Fire is pretty popular, so bring me some sort of fantapolitical plot to put in by tomorrow morning. We still didn't decide which character is King Arthur and if we're gonna have a sexy witch and a dirty nun, or both."

 

[Deleted member 17706]

No, I simply like it more than DA:O.
On this point specifically, DA2 is sort of a mish-mash of ideas (some good, some awful), and something that feels like some dudes sat down and thought: "OK, we need to invent something this time".

DA:O was like "OK, we got Lord of the Ring, shit's popular, now tits and ass are covered, we need a Gimli lookalike and well, of course, some bs reason to put dragons in the main plot. Song of Ice and Fire is pretty popular, so bring me some sort of fantapolitical plot to put in by tomorrow morning. We still didn't decide which character is King Arthur and if we're gonna have a sexy witch and a dirty nun, or both."

Or, you know, the guys who made the game and wrote the lore were just big fantasy fans and were heavily influenced by stuff like Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.

 

[VisanidethDM]

Or, you know, the guys who made the game and wrote the lore were just big fantasy fans and were heavily influenced by stuff like Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.

I'm a big fantasy fan and I love a good homage. DA:O pedantic plagarism just made me throw up in my mouth a little. It was a huge sequence of "Oh, now that thing happens, except it's not as cool".

We're really going in circles here. I keep venting about a game I deem terrible and the people who like it keep justifying it. We should just agree to disagree.

 

[TheChaos]

For all their design choices, the one I'm most confused about is the Charm/Intimidate removal. Like, almost every Bioware game has it, even Mass Effect 2 which is the most "un-RPG like" of them all. Why, Bioware?

 

[Xilium]

For all their design choices, the one I'm most confused about is the Charm/Intimidate removal. Like, almost every Bioware game has it, even Mass Effect 2 which is the most "un-RPG like" of them all. Why, Bioware?

Because that is a bad system. People will always make decisions based on which choice will max out their good/bad meter as opposed doing what they think is the right/appropriate thing to do in a given situation.

Color coding morality and giving incentives for being pure good or pure evil were the worst things you could do to a choice & consequence system.

 

[TheChaos]

Because that is a bad system. People will always make decisions based on which choice will max out their good/bad meter as opposed doing what they think is the right/appropriate thing to do in a given situation.

Color coding morality and giving incentives for being pure good or pure evil were the worst things you could do to a choice & consequence system.

Uh, there was no defined good/bad system in Dragon Age: Origins. You could intimidate people to get positive results, and vice-versa. You're thinking of Mass Effect. Charm/Intimidate was there so you could talk your way into getting what you wanted, like Speech from the Fallout games.

 

[Xilium]

Uh, there was no defined good/bad system in Dragon Age: Origins. You could intimidate people to get positive results, and vice-versa. You're thinking of Mass Effect. Charm/Intimidate was there so you could talk your way into getting what you wanted, like Speech from the Fallout games.

Ahh, my bad. You were talking about the coercion skill (I always used it for persuasion so I didn't connect the dots).

Edit: I think I would still prefer it if those options weren't so blatantly pointed out to you though. I think it would be better if there were just always an intimidation option available and its success would be based on you prior actions/reputation as well as your physical appearance/presence (strength stat, class, as well as maybe having people react differently to the types of armor/clothing you're wearing).

 

[cartman414]

I think Bioware always benefitted from the fact that competition was incredibly limited in the genre. Bethesda/etc have stuck to single player action RPGs for ages, and nobody put up competition elsewhere (even the hyperhyped The Witcher 2 is an action RPG). Bioware games were never good, they were simply the best in the genre for lack of competition. Personally I find DA2 an high point in their production, expecially coming from the disasterous Origins and the action game experience of ME1/2.

Never good?

 

[Gvaz]

I liked KOTOR 1 and 2, and own them both on xbox and pc, and I own ME1 on xbox and pc. I've also rebought NWN like 2 times (for the full packages and such)

I haven't really played their older titles and I can't say I like any of them very much but those. DA:O was good, it was like an rpg I never played but also easy to get into with a setting I found interesting.

DA2 was just a bastardized DA:O in the most boring plain setting ever constructed with shameless replugs of environments with only a wall to break it up or a flipped map and mostly characters so boring and tropey that it made me want to kill all of them ala PS:T.

 

[water_wendi]

Never good?

i think "never good" is a little harsh but otherwise i agree. Bioware has been skating by on being a big fish in a small pond. Its clear that Bioware puts flash and style above substance. This is something evident in every single game theyve made where they didnt create their own rpg system (compare BG2s or Kotors mechanics to Jade Empire, Mass Effect, or even Dragon Age). They are a development house that hit their artistic peak ten years ago and have been in varying stages of decline ever since. They are also the only game company i can think of off the top of my head that caters more to potential fans than their own fans.

The big fish small pond could also apply to Bethesada (how many Elder Scrolls clones have their been since 1994? None) but they at least attempt to improve things (changes in design leadership excepting) and can acknowledge when things go awry.

 

[cartman414]

i think "never good" is a little harsh but otherwise i agree. Bioware has been skating by on being a big fish in a small pond. Its clear that Bioware puts flash and style above substance. This is something evident in every single game theyve made where they didnt create their own rpg system (compare BG2s or Kotors mechanics to Jade Empire, Mass Effect, or even Dragon Age). They are a development house that hit their artistic peak ten years ago and have been in varying stages of decline ever since. They are also the only game company i can think of off the top of my head that caters more to potential fans than their own fans.

The big fish small pond could also apply to Bethesada (how many Elder Scrolls clones have their been since 1994? None) but they at least attempt to improve things (changes in design leadership excepting) and can acknowledge when things go awry.

Yeah, I agree from the sense where they have had to come up with their RPG mechanics from scratch. At the same time, I do have to give them credit for distilling the essence of D&D as well as they did with the BG series. Heck, it was the first great D&D game in ages at the time. One other reason those games were so great, though, was that they had the assistance of Black Isle. Comparing PS: T to NWN, it's pretty clear where all the real game design talent was.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

I did. I completed the game 3-4 times on various difficulty levels.



Oh and



One of your companions/lover was about to be consumed/killed. And looking at the outcome of the end I say saving Morrigan was vital.

Yeah, whatever. You can keep justifying it though DAO is full of these idiotic plot choices and the thing you say about difficulty scaling is just what I said with more words, since you love the game so much, and thats fine with me since I don't really care. I was never trying to convince you that DAO is shit. I'm happy that you enjoyed it, spent something like 400 hours on it, or maybe 200, good for you.

The reason I started posting here was because I read some guy was really enjoying the game like me, and all I was saying was, he should play the whole thing and he will probably love it.

About the differences between DA2 and DAO though, we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

[natkingcoleslaw]

There's no need to try and convince you which game is "better". You've already made up your mind. Okay, you like Dragon Age 2. Great. However, you also need to understand that there are other people out there who don't like it at all and for many different reasons.

That is what I have been saying since my first post on "revenge of shit mountain".