Dragon Age 2

[TheBanana]

So I caved and bought it. I figured it's likely to be a good game regardless of whether or not it lives up to my expectations. Played for a few hours last night and enjoyed it but it's still not as good as DA:O

Some thoughts so far (FYI I'm playing a mage so your experiences may vary):
1) Story is interesting so far. I kind of like that the story starts slow in contrast to Origins where shit hit the fan relatively quickly.
2) The changes to combat do make it entertaining but my biggest gripe is that enemies come in waves and basically seem to come from all directions ALL the time. This makes stealth and properly positioning your party pretty useless so far (granted I'm not terribly far in). AoE spells also don't damage party members (on hard mode, I hear it does on nightmare) but I'm not even sure I want this to change because otherwise AoE will be completely useless because of the fact that the enemy always seems to come in waves from all directions.
3) Looooong cool down on spells is kind of annoying but I imagine it'll be less so once I've accumulated a dozen or so different spells. Haven't had to worry about mana as a result but I expect this to change as I advance further.
4) Graphics do look better but not (IMO) so significantly better than DA:O that it becomes a talking point in anyway.

Killing a fully grown dragon was actually hard on normal in part 1. I got one in the first try after just an hour or 3 of gameplay?

Jeez. I mean, they are simplifying and streamlining and making stuff easier, but making a dragon fight trivial kinda sucks


Love the rest so far though.

Well those were very special dragons to be fair. But yeah, killing any kind of dragon is expected to be a late game achievement.

[Chen]

Killing a fully grown dragon was actually hard on normal in part 1. I got one in the first try after just an hour or 3 of gameplay?

Jeez. I mean, they are simplifying and streamlining and making stuff easier, but making a dragon fight trivial kinda sucks

Even the "mature dragons" seem to have a range of strength. Also note that in DA:O I think you only actually fought and killed high dragons and minor dragons. I don't really recall any in between ones.

[Vaniver]

2) The changes to combat do make it entertaining but my biggest gripe is that enemies come in waves and basically seem to come from all directions ALL the time. This makes stealth and properly positioning your party pretty useless so far (granted I'm not terribly far in). AoE spells also don't damage party members (on hard mode, I hear it does on nightmare) but I'm not even sure I want this to change because otherwise AoE will be completely useless because of the fact that the enemy always seems to come in waves from all directions.

Right. It seems to be that when you kill someone, they spawn a replacement. I can see why they do it (give you lots of enemies to fight without giving the enemies a chance to really overwhelm you / make AoE too awesome), but until you get used to it it can be a bit frustrating (particularly when there's a mage, you dump everyone on the mage, then you relax, then the mage that just spawned starts causing problems).

[Jessica]

Yeah... though usually when I kill the mage first, a new mage doesn't spawn.. (or at least it hasn't yet for me).

[el_loco_avs]

Killing a fully grown dragon was actually hard on normal in part 1. I got one in the first try after just an hour or 3 of gameplay?

Jeez. I mean, they are simplifying and streamlining and making stuff easier, but making a dragon fight trivial kinda sucks

Even the "mature dragons" seem to have a range of strength. Also note that in DA:O I think you only actually fought and killed high dragons and minor dragons. I don't really recall any in between ones.

Hmm. Could be it was a weaksauce dragon or something yeah. But still... In DA:O I remember getting completely obliterated by every single fully grown dragon during questing. Only after mid-game could I return fully stocked to crush them, and still had trouble. Armor making was worth it though.

edit:

I love gibbing enemies though

[Chen]

Hmm. Could be it was a weaksauce dragon or something yeah. But still... In DA:O I remember getting completely obliterated by every single fully grown dragon during questing. Only after mid-game could I return fully stocked to crush them, and still had trouble. Armor making was worth it though.

I think they added a category or two of dragon in this one. There are the little dragons (Dragonlings) but then there are "Dragons" and "Mature Dragons". And of course "High Dragons" (I assume since there's an achievement to kill one). In DA:O I think there were the little dragonlings and drakes but then the full grown dragons were all "High dragons". At least the one near Andraste's ashes and Flemmeth were. And yeah they were quite annoyingly difficult to fight.

So far in DA2 I've only fought a couple of dragons:

Spoiler:

One in the mines in Act 1, one in the deep roads and one at the top of the Elf mountain thing in Act 2, though there didn't seem to be any reason to actually fight that one (or I did things completely out of order

I'm enjoying the companion quests in act 2. Aveline's one is hilarious, especially if you bring Isabella along with you to do it.

It also seems that Isabella's unique talent tree thing is absurdly strong. There's some AOE attack thing that autocrits regular enemies and if you get the upgrade stuns them. Seems a tad unfair, not to mention her two talents that give 20% defense and 20% attack.

[el_loco_avs]

I've only fought the one in the mines so far. Fun stuff.


Some of the fights get a little challenging now later, you can't grab too much aggro as a mage. And it's oooooh so easy to grab it early on when they're so deliciously grouped up for an AOE attack.



Isabela rocks so far, only just got her. Merril's story is fun. I liked Varric but having two rogues is probably not that smart. Need tank. So that's Aveline I guess? My Hawke's a mage.

Noone has healing so far though. lol.

[Chen]

Healing seems completely unnecessary on Normal difficulty. Potions seem more than sufficient and as long as you have a tank bosses die fine unless you pull agro.

I also just got the potion recipe that allows you to revive fallen party members in combat (though its expensive at 2 sovereigns each) which is a good fall back in case of catastrophe.

I'm using Archer-Hawke, Isabella, Merill and Aveline and things are pretty smooth. With both rogues having improved Miasma flask and Merill having Sleep, Horror, Cone of Cold and the other ice thing that can freeze people, you can very quickly take care of the normal enemies in fights. I imagine things would be a lot more difficult on Nightmare where friendly fire is activated on abilities since I tend to spam rain of fire and arrow storm (or whatever they are called). In fact Nightmare is probably just a horrible pain in the ass for targeting big AOE like that due to camera angles in some places.

[JudeMorrigan]

Hmm. Could be it was a weaksauce dragon or something yeah. But still... In DA:O I remember getting completely obliterated by every single fully grown dragon during questing. Only after mid-game could I return fully stocked to crush them, and still had trouble. Armor making was worth it though.

I think they added a category or two of dragon in this one. There are the little dragons (Dragonlings) but then there are "Dragons" and "Mature Dragons". And of course "High Dragons" (I assume since there's an achievement to kill one). In DA:O I think there were the little dragonlings and drakes but then the full grown dragons were all "High dragons". At least the one near Andraste's ashes and Flemmeth were. And yeah they were quite annoyingly difficult to fight.

In DA:O

Spoiler:

The dragon you fought on the way through the ruins doing the Lair of the Werewolves quest was a mature dragon, wasn't it?

[Ryom]

It was a mature male dragon, yes.

[JudeMorrigan]

I'm not sure that's true. Males are drakes, aren't they? The one I'm thinking of wasn't. This wiki, at least, seems to agree that it was a female that hadn't matured into a high dragon yet.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon

[Ryom]

Could be...

[pseudoidiot]

Anyone have any idea who the voice actor for the Qunari Arishok is? I'm not having any luck finding the answer on the internet and he sounds an awful lot like Christopher Judge. But I'd imagine if it were him, it would've been easier to find at this point.

[VectorZero]

p.s.: the lesser shades now look suspiciously like geth.....

I was wondering if other people saw that too...

[Menacing Spike]

So according to Isabela, Anders uses electricity magic for kinky sex.

Discuss.

[el_loco_avs]

Heh. Encountered Biggie Dragon number 2 in

Spoiler:

the Deep Roads...

Forgot to bring a Tank. No good save near the last point where I could pick my team.


Ended up soloing the dragon after my team went down taking him down to 25% (and 3 dragonlings too).

0 health potions left now

[Menacing Spike]

0 health potions left now

Haha the next boss is gonna be fun.

[el_loco_avs]

Heh. Yeah that guy annihilated me first try. But second try went okay.

Decided to at least take heal with my Hawke.

[Xeio]

0 health potions left now

Pansy. I only used 2, though Marill and Varric got knocked out when I totally didn't notice his friends show up near (not my) character.

Also, I felt so weak as a rogue in the deep roads with Bethany, Marill, and Varric. Talk about "Well just own everything and you stand over there poking things with knives". Especially the boss that used knockbacks, he pinned me against a wall and smashed me till I died.

[pseudoidiot]

I feel like my dual-wielding rogue holds his own pretty well in most fights, especially with backstab & twin fang. Plus I'm just having a blast with him cart-wheeling all over the battlefield, tossing bombs & miasmic flasks and wading in to stabbity-stab.

While the boss fight in the Deep Roads was a bit tricky

Spoiler:

Once, I realized I could get people to hide behind the columns during his little explodey power, it went much better.

The only fight that's come close to wiping my party out was in act 2 there's a cave that opens up on Sundermount close to the elven encampment

Spoiler:

Full of shades & demons & abominations. In the last chamber where the Nexus Golem is there's quite a few waves of them and they managed to wipe out everyone but Varric (mostly because I wasn't paying close enough attention and I drawn to the other side of the room away from my party). I was down to just two mobs, but running Varric around the room and occasionally taking pot shots with Bianca wasn't enough to cut it. The second time through went much better, though.

[Xeio]

I'm thinking that maybe it would actually be a good idea to play on hard unlike the first game. In DA:O, easy was hard, but they actually fixed some of the difficulty problems now.

[TheBanana]

I'm thinking that maybe it would actually be a good idea to play on hard unlike the first game. In DA:O, easy was hard, but they actually fixed some of the difficulty problems now.

Well DA:O was hard on easy mode until you got a mage with heal in your party. It then became easy on hard mode once you got two mages in your party and then nightmare mode became easy once you unlocked the arcane warrior.



Ugh, so I was really enjoying this game for most of Act 1 but now that I'm in Act 2 the combat has really started to get repetitive and the wave system is just annoying. In some situations it makes sense and can be fun but when enemies come in waves 100% of the time and literally appear from thin air all around you... annoying. Also, from a purely Role Playing perspective, keep in mind that in each encounter against fellow humans, your character/party is killing like minimum 10 people. Add up the number of people your character kills throughout the game and I'm sure it adds up to at least 1000 or more. This is a ridiculous number of people to kill over the course of 10 years and yes I know that almost every RPG has you killing what is in reality a ridiculous number of people but DA2 takes this to a whole new level. And the worst part is is that so many of these fights are completely unavoidable.

And also the friendship/rivalry thing is bugging me as I'm finding it very hard to increase either friendship OR rivalry. My characters seem to be staying in the middle. Inventory system is frustrating as I keep getting awesome items that no one can use and I don't understand the point of junk items.
Agh, I miss DA:O, why did they "fix" a system that wasn't broken?

Anyway, although I do think the game is good, "frustrating" is the word I would use to describe it because it's impossible to play without comparing it to DA:O and other great RPGs like Fall Out 2, Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment and in the end DA2 just can't match up against these games.

And concerning the ending of the game (which has been spoiled to me by a friend)

Spoiler:

The ending just seems stupid. I understand that Bioware wanted to have a situation where there is no black and white sides but rather everything is in shades of gray but the ending to this game is just dumb. Were I in the place of my character I wouldn't side with either the templars or the mages but rather kill all the over zealous templars and then kill all the blood magic using mages / abominations and force everyone to get along at the point of a sword. Unfortunately I've been told that that option doesn't exist.

[broken_escalator]

Re: the ending...

Spoiler:

You will be extremist, and you will like it!

[Chen]

The ending:

Spoiler:

If you side with the Templar it at least flows nicely. You face Orsino he uses blood magic as a last resort and you kill his new abomination form. Then Meridith doesn't trust you and attacks. Fine.

However, if you side with the mages it just doesn't make sense. You're fighting off the Templar when Orsino drops a gate to keep them out, turns into the abomination and attacks YOU. I mean come on now, I took your side and you changed into an abomination for no reason (since I was doing fine killing the templar). Not only that you lock the templar out of the room so you're new abomination can't hurt them and can only hurt ME your ally. And of course after that Meridith attacks you since you sided with the mages (which at least is consistent).

Having some way to prevent Anders from blowing up the Chantry would have been nice. It would have felt all the more shocking if I realized it only happened because of something I did. Alas, even if you don't do his quest, he blows up the Chantry. I really think RPGs like this need more completely different ways to end the game. Even if its only 2 it could be interesting. Fallout New Vegas actually did this very well with 4 rather distinct Ending scenarios.

[broken_escalator]

Yeah games that try to make your choices seem important really should have different endings. I can understand they might not want to go the mass effect route and try to build a sequel off the choices, but to me that is really awesome.

[Xeio]

Well DA:O was hard on easy mode until you got a mage with heal in your party. It then became easy on hard mode once you got two mages in your party and then nightmare mode became easy once you unlocked the arcane warrior.

Well, I didn't bother with Wynn my first playthrough (and quit once I got to the spiders in the deep roads), and the second I accidentally killed her. I didn't really find a healer particularly important with 2 mages in my party though from my second run (I barely used health potions except for the end when Alistar, the fucker I pimped out, left my party and I was stuck with Loghain, though by that point I had 40+ of greater/potents).

Granted, I still think this is balanced a lot better to the point that you don't need to get off a perfect petrify/cone of cold to do well (though it still helps a lot). The spawning hasn't really bothered me.

[pseudoidiot]

At this point the only thing I can think of that I liked better about DA:O was how it handled all the screens for inventory/quests/journal/etc that I could bring up with one button. Granted, it's pretty minor, but I don't like having to press a button to bring up a pause menu, then from there have the option to go to my journal, my inventory, or my character section. I liked having that all in one place and being able to toggle through them. But overall that's not a big deal.

Also: one thing I'm curious about. I almost always go for the humorous/snarky/sarcastic conversation options. And I've noticed that in other times where I'm not prompted for input Hawke seems to keep up that trend. My guess is some of what Hawke says is based on what sort of conversation option you use most often, but I'm not sure. Can anyone confirm that?

[Chen]

At this point the only thing I can think of that I liked better about DA:O was how it handled all the screens for inventory/quests/journal/etc that I could bring up with one button. Granted, it's pretty minor, but I don't like having to press a button to bring up a pause menu, then from there have the option to go to my journal, my inventory, or my character section. I liked having that all in one place and being able to toggle through them. But overall that's not a big deal.

On the PC there are hotkeys for each of them. And a nearly impossible to see menu bar on the bottom right of the screen to select each of them individually without going through the pause menu.

Also: one thing I'm curious about. I almost always go for the humorous/snarky/sarcastic conversation options. And I've noticed that in other times where I'm not prompted for input Hawke seems to keep up that trend. My guess is some of what Hawke says is based on what sort of conversation option you use most often, but I'm not sure. Can anyone confirm that?

I don't recall where I read it, but apparently the first response you use at the beginning of an act sets the base tone for that act. If you're consistently choosing different responses it will move away from it, but that first choice apparently gives you a lot of "points" for that type of response. As you choose other responses you get points as well and whichever is highest will determine the general tone Hawk takes.

[broken_escalator]

That is a really clever way to make the character sound more personal without adding a fuckton of options for every dialogue. I mean yeah you're still adding all the options, but limiting it so the player doesn't have to pick from all the different tones.

[thc]

I know this is old, but still very much relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C73MOJXRg-E

[Menacing Spike]

Aveline's stun immunity was amusing during the final boss.

Spoiler:

At a point of the fight the boss stuns everything and gives a speech for a minute. While Aveline is wailing on the ennemy for 20 damage per hit. Go, Aveline.

edit: despoiler'd
edit - respoiler'd - ST

[el_loco_avs]

Oooh Merrill is wearing shiny new armorsssss pretty

[Eseell]

The ending:

Spoiler:

If you side with the Templar it at least flows nicely. You face Orsino he uses blood magic as a last resort and you kill his new abomination form. Then Meridith doesn't trust you and attacks. Fine.

However, if you side with the mages it just doesn't make sense. You're fighting off the Templar when Orsino drops a gate to keep them out, turns into the abomination and attacks YOU. I mean come on now, I took your side and you changed into an abomination for no reason (since I was doing fine killing the templar). Not only that you lock the templar out of the room so you're new abomination can't hurt them and can only hurt ME your ally. And of course after that Meridith attacks you since you sided with the mages (which at least is consistent).

Having some way to prevent Anders from blowing up the Chantry would have been nice. It would have felt all the more shocking if I realized it only happened because of something I did. Alas, even if you don't do his quest, he blows up the Chantry. I really think RPGs like this need more completely different ways to end the game. Even if its only 2 it could be interesting. Fallout New Vegas actually did this very well with 4 rather distinct Ending scenarios.

more end-game spoilers, among other spoilers

Spoiler:

It felt like it ran off the rails well before that if you sided with the mages. I mean, they kidnap your sibling and accuse you of siding with the Knight-Commander when I specifically avoided giving that impression at every opportunity. I spoke out against her in public more than once, but as soon as the apostates see you they're all "Gee willikers it's the evil Champion who is herself an apostate and on our side! Kill her!"

I really wish they had played up the apostate angle for mage PCs. You spend the whole game killing dudes on main street with fire raining from the sky and no one says a thing. Then you have the option of killing the whole Qunari army in front of all the nobles in the city and still no one cares. Meredith only mentions it in passing a couple of times. In the context of this plot, it seems like it should be a much bigger deal for the PC to be an apostate mage capable of shattering people with her mind.

[Menacing Spike]

Spoiler:

It felt like it ran off the rails well before that if you sided with the mages. I mean, they kidnap your sibling and accuse you of siding with the Knight-Commander when I specifically avoided giving that impression at every opportunity. I spoke out against her in public more than once, but as soon as the apostates see you they're all "Gee willikers it's the evil Champion who is herself an apostate and on our side! Kill her!"

I really wish they had played up the apostate angle for mage PCs. You spend the whole game killing dudes on main street with fire raining from the sky and no one says a thing. Then you have the option of killing the whole Qunari army in front of all the nobles in the city and still no one cares. Meredith only mentions it in passing a couple of times. In the context of this plot, it seems like it should be a much bigger deal for the PC to be an apostate mage capable of shattering people with her mind.

Spoiler:

Indeed... Meridith even says "I'll overlook your use of magic for now". Looks like she forgot or something.
Being an apostate does bring some dialog options though.

"I'm a mage in hiding go away go away aaah"
*flame hand*
"Oh hi"

I am more annoyed by the fact that you can use fucking blood magic in front of people and they just don't care.


First enchanter stupidity: could be due to all of his dead friends and the years of oppression and the stress of the situation. They don't do much for mental stability, those things.

Also, a shame Isabela is so unidimentional. "I'm a pirate, let's bone everything!", that's her whole character .

[thecommabandit]

Oooh Merrill is wearing shiny new armorsssss pretty

It's alright. I honestly preferred her main armour.

[Vyn]

Isabela rocks so far, only just got her. Merril's story is fun. I liked Varric but having two rogues is probably not that smart. Need tank. So that's Aveline I guess? My Hawke's a mage.

Noone has healing so far though. lol.

It's somewhat annoying that Aveline is the only option for a shield using tank if your Hawke isn't one, but I found that Fenris can tank quite well with Lyrium ghost and Battle Synergy. He gets better aggro and is better at soaking magic damage, just not as good at soaking physical damage, and does significantly more dps than Aveline. Problem for me is that, although Fenris is badass, my Hawke is a mage. And I have Merril in my party too... We don't get along very well lol. Isabella is constantly hitting on him though, it's odd (and funny) to hear the self-assured Fenris sound unsure off her comments.

And I love the fact that your conversation picks change Hawke's non-chosen dialogue as well. Fem-Hawke has an awesome voice for the sarcastic and hearing her murmuring about whether the wounded coast is next to the limping hills or the massive head trauma forest is great.

[pseudoidiot]

I think so far my favorite companion quest might be Aveline's in act II

Spoiler:

Just for the sheer amount of awkwardness in her being out of her element and trying to woo Donnic.

Also, I got Anders into bed and afterward there's a short conversation and he confesses, "I love you." The humorous/sarcastic response was basically "I'm hungry, do you want a sandwich?" Which I picked, of course. My wife thought it was hilarious and not romantic at all. I responded that there's nothing wrong with a post-nookie snack.

My Hawk is a dual-wield thief. I always have Varric in my party (the only time I don't is if I have to use Sebastian -- don't need two ranged thieves), and I always use Anders as my mage. I'm not a fan of Merrill, so she only comes out for her companion quests. The 4th is either Aveline or Fenris. I like them about equally, although I think I have a slight preference for Aveline. Generally the best part of having Fenris in the party is the other characters messing with him.

[VectorZero]

MageHawke/Merrill/Varric/Aveline, planning on a blood/spirit spec.

Abandoned my DWRogue when I heard about the isabela speed bug, hopefully can pick that up again sometime.

And I think this pretty much nailed the post launch debate...

[pseudoidiot]

Speed bug?

[Chen]

If you have Isabela's (or Sebatien's) friend bonus there are circumstances where it is added/removed badly which can end up reducing your attack speed (Isabela) or your resistances (Sebastien). I seem to recall reading something about loading save games when they are not in the party. This "removes" the buff but since they were already not in the party the buff wasn't actually being applied so you actually lose 5% attack speed and whatever bonus Sebastien gives you. Once you've lost stats this way there's no way short of editing your savegame to get them back.