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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain

Lakitu

st5fu
I think I'm towards the end of act 2 right now. It feels like I'm crawling through at times, it's definitely very flawed but it's not that bad.

I doubt I'll be playing too much over the weekend (because of Portal 2), even though where I gave up had my interested piqued.
 

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
natkingcoleslaw said:
I'm happy that you enjoyed it, spent something like 400 hours on it, or maybe 200, good for you.

Haha 400-200 hours ? you must be terrible.

and thats fine with me since I don't really care.

you don't ? Thanks for the wall of text then.

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.

Are you only reading my posts? I'm flattered. the guy who was "really enjoying it" ended up calling it an average game and echoed what everyone else in the world was saying about it.

Yeah we disagree, off you go then.
 

nateeasy

Banned
Im having some issues keeping
Isabela
in my party.
She always leaves towards the end of act 2. I read that she may come back in the final fight of act2 but she never has for me.
Any help?
 

Dacon

Banned
I enjoyed the hell out of this game on PC. It plays pretty much identically to the first game except for the hordes of spawning enemies and the less versatile camera.

It does fall short of the first game in a few areas, but I really liked the cast and the largely improved character designs(except for the putty men darkspawn).

The game definitely has its fair share of problems, but I found it nowhere the terrible experience so many are reporting.
 

Gvaz

Banned
Dacon said:
The game definitely has its fair share of problems, but I found it nowhere the terrible experience so many are reporting.
You have a lot more patience for bad design than most do then.

All the problems I had were design flaws and major issues with presentation and depth.

For a sequel it had a lot expected out of it, and it does nothing right that the original game did right.

It's like they did this shit on purpose.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Well, it seems BioWare has revealed what happened to the story DLC:

da2dlcm7ct.png


The direction they take with the DLC should tell us a lot about some of the changes they plan to make for DA3.
 
nateeasy said:
Im having some issues keeping
Isabela
in my party.
She always leaves towards the end of act 2. I read that she may come back in the final fight of act2 but she never has for me.
Any help?

You have to have romanced her for her to come back, I believe.
 

Crazetex

Member
To keep Isabela,
you must have 50+ Friendship or Rivalry to unlock a quest - Questioning Beliefs if I remember correctly - and not actually give her up to the Qunari leader
. It's kind of like Zevran's friendship gate scenario near the end of DA:O.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Well, I finally finished it! I clocked in at 25 hours. I did all of the side content I could find except for a few quests in the final chapter.

I remain extremely disappointed in the game. There were some really entertaining side quests, and some interesting characters, but otherwise I mostly disliked the game. The main story was especially poor, as was the way in which it was presented.

Oh well!
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
I dunno when I'll get around to playing this, but if someone wouldn't mind, I would like to be spoiled on the DA:O character cameos.

thanks
 

Bromeliad

Neo Member
Snuggler said:
I dunno when I'll get around to playing this, but if someone wouldn't mind, I would like to be spoiled on the DA:O character cameos.

thanks

Okay:

SPOILERS

http://pastebin.com/j9cHTZT6

SPOILERS

No clicky if no want spoilage. Sorry if I'm not using spoiler tags, I'm new to this website and sort of jumpy about the regulations.
 

natkingcoleslaw

Neo Member
Yurt said:
Haha 400-200 hours ? you must be terrible.

you don't ? Thanks for the wall of text then.

the guy who was "really enjoying it" ended up calling it an average game and echoed what everyone else in the world was saying about it.

Yeah we disagree, off you go then.

Why should I go. This is a DA2 thread and since you hate it so much maybe you should find yourself the DAO thread instead.
 

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
natkingcoleslaw said:
Why should I go. This is a DA2 thread and since you hate it so much maybe you should find yourself the DAO thread instead.

We are all free to voice our opinions and thoughts in the OTs.

I don't know why you took my last line so literally.

I dunno when I'll get around to playing this, but if someone wouldn't mind, I would like to be spoiled on the DA:O character cameos.

If you're planning on playing it eventually, I don't recommend you read the list posted above. It actually spoils a big plot point.
 
Crazetex said:
To keep Isabela,
you must have 50+ Friendship or Rivalry to unlock a quest - Questioning Beliefs if I remember correctly - and not actually give her up to the Qunari leader
. It's kind of like Zevran's friendship gate scenario near the end of DA:O.

IIRC I'm not 100% sure its necessary but I think also you have might have to
make sure when you have the choice of assisting Aveline or Isabela when they approach you at your manor you volunteer to help Isabela and you also let her know you'll let her have the book as opposed to wanting it for yourself to give to the Aristok.

Nirolak said:
The direction they take with the DLC should tell us a lot about some of the changes they plan to make for DA3.

Really hope they go with an Awakenings style expansion as opposed to some of the smaller DLCs we saw for DA:O.
 

webrunner

Member
My main problem with this game so far is the lack of party choices. Ignoring Hawke, you basically have:

Archer Rogue - Sebastian (DLC), Varric (doesn't use Bow drops)
Melee Rogue - Isabella (
Can and will leave your party if you aren't careful
)
Attack mage - Merrill, Bethany (Only if melee class,
don't have for acts 2+3
)
Healer -Anders (AND ONLY ANDERS.
Also he can leave at several points. or be forced to kill. So it's really easy to be without a majorly important party role
)
Tank - Avaline, Fenris (Kinda. If you spec him right Lyrium Ghost does a lot to keep him alive.
But you also might lose him too, but he's not quite as knife-edge as other characters like Anders and Isabella particularly
)
2H Warrior - Fenris, Carver (Only if mage,
doesn't ave for acts 2+3
)


So depending on your choices, you can have an entire class of weapons unusable (if you dont play an archer and dont have the DLC, nobody ever can use bows!), and be without a healer.

The game really needs more options for healer and tank, at the very least.
 

edgefusion

Member
webrunner said:
My main problem with this game so far is the lack of party choices. Ignoring Hawke, you basically have:

Archer Rogue - Sebastian (DLC), Varric (doesn't use Bow drops)
Melee Rogue - Isabella (
Can and will leave your party if you aren't careful
)
Attack mage - Merrill, Bethany (Only if melee class,
don't have for acts 2+3
)
Healer -Anders (AND ONLY ANDERS.
Also he can leave at several points. or be forced to kill. So it's really easy to be without a majorly important party role
)
Tank - Avaline, Fenris (Kinda. If you spec him right Lyrium Ghost does a lot to keep him alive.
But you also might lose him too, but he's not quite as knife-edge as other characters like Anders and Isabella particularly
)
2H Warrior - Fenris, Carver (Only if mage,
doesn't ave for acts 2+3
)


So depending on your choices, you can have an entire class of weapons unusable (if you dont play an archer and dont have the DLC, nobody ever can use bows!), and be without a healer.

The game really needs more options for healer and tank, at the very least.

I agree completely, I started my second run through and thought I'd have someone else as my tank to mix it up a little. No dice. I don't see why I can't just give a sword and shield to Fenris or... well there aren't any other sword users (not counting Carver for obvious reasons). The fact that Anders is the only healer is perplexing too, what is arguably the most important role to a group and you're only given one option and he (End of act 3 spoiler)
turns out to be a complete dick.

My biggest companion disappointment was the lack of a Qunari. Like holy Jesus I hope they have this planned for DLC. I need a sword and shield Qunari in my party. Dem abs.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
webrunner said:
My main problem with this game so far is the lack of party choices. Ignoring Hawke, you basically have:

Archer Rogue - Sebastian (DLC), Varric (doesn't use Bow drops)
Melee Rogue - Isabella (
Can and will leave your party if you aren't careful
)
Attack mage - Merrill, Bethany (Only if melee class,
don't have for acts 2+3
)
Healer -Anders (AND ONLY ANDERS.
Also he can leave at several points. or be forced to kill. So it's really easy to be without a majorly important party role
)
Tank - Avaline, Fenris (Kinda. If you spec him right Lyrium Ghost does a lot to keep him alive.
But you also might lose him too, but he's not quite as knife-edge as other characters like Anders and Isabella particularly
)
2H Warrior - Fenris, Carver (Only if mage,
doesn't ave for acts 2+3
)


So depending on your choices, you can have an entire class of weapons unusable (if you dont play an archer and dont have the DLC, nobody ever can use bows!), and be without a healer.

The game really needs more options for healer and tank, at the very least.

You can use an item(makers sigh) to redistribute party skill points to turn ANY of the mages into a healer. Barring that, you also don't need to use the auto-skill up feature and can manually make Merrill et al. a healer mage once she arrives.

Also I am about to wrap up Act 3 and never used Anders. Health Potions are a fine enough substitute for a proper mage healer. The cooldown is long though, and you need to craft special potions to deal with reviving. But I spent most of the game on Normal just rolling with a DPS group just fine.

But I do understand the frustration though. Mostly when it comes to Aveline being the only NPC sword and board tank option. I mostly just approached my party makeup specifically for the conversation ambience. I almost never bothered with tactical priority, the game is mostly daft at that anyway.
 

nateeasy

Banned
Crazetex said:
To keep Isabela,
you must have 50+ Friendship or Rivalry to unlock a quest - Questioning Beliefs if I remember correctly - and not actually give her up to the Qunari leader
. It's kind of like Zevran's friendship gate scenario near the end of DA:O.

OK that quest is unlocked but when I go to the hanged man she isnt there. Should I just continue to act 3?
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
nateeasy said:
OK that quest is unlocked but when I go to the hanged man she isnt there. Should I just continue to act 3?

She will reappear during the final moments of Act II if you have sufficiently done the pre-reqs.

Just beat the game finally. Without spoiling, the final moments are as absurd as I'm sure most everyone has argued to death over. Once Act III rolled around I pretty much bottomed-out in interest anyway, and felt like I was just pushing to the end to get it over with. Shame, I really enjoyed most of the early game, but the ideas and gameplay never panned out well.
 

Patryn

Member
Nirolak said:
BioWare noted that they were putting up Dragon Age 3 job postings today: http://twitter.com/#!/Al_McNally/status/71316422445371393

Lo and behold, this also went up today, and is the first network programming job at BioWare to ask for console experience, but not Unreal Engine 3 experience: https://jobs.ea.com/search/view.do?id=a0z50000000tRYv

Multiplayer is definitely looking more and more likely.

Guess the era of Bioware as an RPG maker is over.

Eastern Europe, you're our only hope.
 

webrunner

Member
Brandon F said:
You can use an item(makers sigh) to redistribute party skill points to turn ANY of the mages into a healer. Barring that, you also don't need to use the auto-skill up feature and can manually make Merrill et al. a healer mage once she arrives.

Also I am about to wrap up Act 3 and never used Anders. Health Potions are a fine enough substitute for a proper mage healer. The cooldown is long though, and you need to craft special potions to deal with reviving. But I spent most of the game on Normal just rolling with a DPS group just fine.

But I do understand the frustration though. Mostly when it comes to Aveline being the only NPC sword and board tank option. I mostly just approached my party makeup specifically for the conversation ambience. I almost never bothered with tactical priority, the game is mostly daft at that anyway.

Merrill doesn't even have the Creation tree to allow her to heal, though.
Bethany can, but
isn't there most of the game
and doesnt have a healing specialization so lacks a revival spell or group heal.

The only good dedicated healers are Mage Hawke and Anders.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
These aren't officially DLC images yet, just "mysterious images" they posted, which is why I put them here instead of a new thread.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
You know how sometimes after completing a game you get wistful about it and think that it is better than it actually was? Yea, the exact opposite is happening with me and this game right now. I enjoyed it while playing and now after some time being removed from it, I'm just getting more and more annoyed upon reflection.
 

strem

Member
Affeinvasion said:
Say what you will about the writing, but I really really enjoyed Varric as a character.
Varric was the reason I finished this game. I really loved his character. The game really bored the hell out of me. Toward the end I just put it on casual and powered through and I never do things like that. I just wanted it over
 

Patryn

Member
Oh, hey, I guess Mike Laidlaw has opened his mouth again!

And it's.... surprising?

Mike Laidlaw said:
Following the launch of DA II, I did some interviews and some of you interpreted my statements to mean I was blind to the concerns that have been voiced repeatedly on these forums. That was never my intent, nor the message I wanted to convey.

I am absolutely aware of the concerns voiced here. Issues like level re-use, the implementation of wave combat, concerns about the narrative and significance of choice and so on have all been not only noted, but examined,
inspected and even aided me (and many, many others on the team) in formulating future plans. Further, I'm not only aware of the concerns, but I agree that there are aspects of DA II that not only can but must be improved in future installments. And that is precisely our intent.

Look at that! Direct acknowledgment that DA2 had major issues!

But it wouldn't be Laidlaw if he didn't throw in a little "You guys totally don't understand, you're not the audience we're after anymore."

Mike Laidlaw said:
From my perspective, as someone looking to the future and the DA franchise, I think that DA II moved us into a space that has more potential.

A larger potential audience? Sure, who wouldn’t want more players diving into the experience of playing an RPG? More importantly, though, I believe that there's also more potential for rich stories, for deeper RPG mechanics, for more choice, and for something even more epic to come. The story events of DA II have fundamentally altered the political and power landscape of Thedas, in a way that's open to intrigue, drama and sweeping conflict in the
future, and evolves a world that, while still very much involving the Grey Wardens and Darkspawn, is about more than just that one struggle.

So, yep, restricting the choice of race for the main character and removing the ability to equip armor for your companions are "deeper RPG mechanics" and "more choice" than we had in Dragon Age: Origins.

So suck it up, DA2 is the future. Get used to it.
 
Patryn said:
So suck it up, DA2 is the future. Get used to it.

Well, it's the future of Dragon Age, so we're not totally screwed. And as far as Dragon Age goes, it's good news since 2 is massively better than Origins.
 

webrunner

Member
DA2 had problems. Some they could have solved with more time:
- Reused maps
- No specializations for companions
- the lack of a dedicated healer other than Anders
- The lack of a dedicated tank other than Aveline

Some, required some much earlier fixes, mostly story ones
Anders, particularly
only makes sense if you think the Justice thing is just a split personality. His actions literally only make sense from the perspective of him being insane. The fact that he blows up the Chantry, directly after finding out the chantry isnt a problem, is completely ridiculous. Hell, it was implied the Chantry was about to declare the Kirkwall templars a lost cause!

DA1 had problems as well, most of which were fixed by DA2. Awakening was a bugfest.

It's still a good game.. it's just jarring to play after DA1.
 

gdt

Member
VisanidethDM said:
Well, it's the future of Dragon Age, so we're not totally screwed. And as far as Dragon Age goes, it's good news since 2 is massively better than Origins.

Absolutely.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
VisanidethDM said:
Well, it's the future of Dragon Age, so we're not totally screwed. And as far as Dragon Age goes, it's good news since 2 is massively better than Origins.

I hate it when people state shit like this in absolutes. No, it's not massively better than origins. I don't see how you can equate a massive removal of features and dumbing down of everything else as an improvement. I agree that some of the talent tree stuff was a minor improvement over the first game, but it didn't matter much considering how the new combat system was bullshit.

Either way, when the majority opinion is that Dragon Age 2 is by far the worse game, you really should preface stuff like that with "in my opinion".
 
I probably won't bother even if the DLC is free (which it won't be). Those comments from Laidlaw are pretty telling though.

Finally, let me conclude by saying that while we are all aware of your concerns, I am very proud of what the team accomplished with Dragon Age II. I know many are advocating a "it wasn't broke, why did you try to fix it?" stance, and I absolutely understand why. From my perspective, as someone looking to the future and the DA franchise, I think that DA II moved us into a space that has more potential.

And is it just me or what but it seems like this game has fallen off the deep end and completely disappeared from consciousness. It barely had a presence on sales charts. The only time I even hear it mentioned is people hoping Mass Effect 3 is nothing like it. The Witcher 2 OT has already outpaced this topic and isn't slowing down.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Confidence Man said:
I probably won't bother even if the DLC is free (which it won't be). Those comments from Laidlaw are pretty telling though.



And is it just me or what but it seems like this game has fallen off the deep end and completely disappeared from consciousness. It barely had a presence on sales charts. The only time I even hear it mentioned is people hoping Mass Effect 3 is nothing like it. The Witcher 2 OT has already outpaced this topic and isn't slowing down.

No, it's not just you. The public interest for this game, and general opinion of its quality, is much, much lower than Dragon Age: Origins. Most reasonable people realize that it's a pretty damn poor game with an absolutely ridiculous story. It's a shame, too, because the premise for the story really had the potential to take Bioware out of such juvenile territory. Dragon Age: Origins, with its generic epic fantasy tale, still felt far more mature as a story.
 

Hixx

Member
I can't wait for DLC cos I want to see what they've learned from DA2. The ending left a really sour taste and their last DLC (Witch Hunt) also had an infuriating ending so I'm not expecting much in that regard.
 

jackdoe

Member
HixxSAFC said:
I can't wait for DLC cos I want to see what they've learned from DA2. The ending left a really sour taste and their last DLC (Witch Hunt) also had an infuriating ending so I'm not expecting much in that regard.
I'm not going to give Bioware another cent with regards to this game hoping that they fixed some of their problems. DA2 was just so frustrating that I couldn't even get past Act 2 and wasted $60 on it.
 
Zefah said:
I hate it when people state shit like this in absolutes. No, it's not massively better than origins. I don't see how you can equate a massive removal of features and dumbing down of everything else as an improvement. I agree that some of the talent tree stuff was a minor improvement over the first game, but it didn't matter much considering how the new combat system was bullshit.

Either way, when the majority opinion is that Dragon Age 2 is by far the worse game, you really should preface stuff like that with "in my opinion".


Everything I state is "my opinion", so such preface is redundant. I don't hold the truth, you don't either, nor does "the majority".

Now I've expressed my opinion on DA:O in the past, and I wouldn't dwell on that, but its deficiencies in terms of story, cast, mechanics, intellectual honesty and generally originality are so big that in order to be worse than DA:O a game would need to be able to commit genocide.

It's my opinion, of course.
 
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