I liked the part where he didn't mention any of the things they improved on that he didn't like in the first game. For instance having to manage your parties armor and inventory.
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Dragon Age II
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I liked the part where he didn't mention any of the things they improved on that he didn't like in the first game. For instance having to manage your parties armor and inventory.
WabeWalker
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What are you talking about? I was simply alerting people at the forum about the new driver. Dude. Chill.
WabeWalker
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They're not reviews. He's a satirist. Not a satanist. A satirist.
Who was dead on about the spotty, rudderless story and parachute combat mechanics
WabeWalker
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But satirical commentary is supposed to be humorous, and humor is only funny if it's truthful.
There's no game in existence that couldn't be made of fun of like this - it's just the nature of the commentary. I'm not being critical of him, because he's good at it - but I think that what people don't understand is he that likes a lot of these game. People see him making fun of a game that they happen to hate, and assume that he hates it too because he's making fun of it, when that's not necessarily the case.
Using this formula, this guy could make fun of, say, The Wizard of Oz, or Casablanca - or choose any great novel, movie, or game... nothing is safe from this type of commentary.
The only improvement in DA2 is the graphics.
WabeWalker
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... and the gameplay... which is about... ten times better... because... hmm, I think I might have mentioned this already... the cooldown timers on the health spells and health poultices have dramatically been lengthened, thus forcing gamers to... you know... actually strategize.
I've just downloaded the new Nvidia drivers, and I can enthusiastically confirm that they're the bees knees.
Combat was more annoying in dragon age 2. Nerfing pot and heal cooldowns is not the issue either, it's gutting the mechanics of the mage on any non humanoid on higher than normal difficulty (resists on force spells are severe).
Parachute waves = inferior and more annoying battles
Cross Class Combo system = inferior and annoying. It's not "hard" to pull off, but it is annoying to have to to get higher damage, they could easily have cut the damage a bit and allowed intra class combos with the same effect and depth where you could place most of your MICRO on your MAIN character and not spread out to the entire party.
I don't WANT to micro my entire party (sometimes spending more time on companion abilities than my main character = wtf), and don't talk to me about the scripting, it's NOT as good as me controlling it directly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And with this system I HAVE to heavily micro my team to get decent effects. Normal does not count, auto attack difficulty settings are not what needs to be measured.
Basically, what you LIKE about the gameplay, I HATE.
But I still like bioware, I am not going to throw them under the bus after making so many games I enjoyed, but they need to know about the problems many of us are having with our enjoyment of this game. And they do now, the bigger question is what they are going to do about it.
So far the only thing I have heard Laidlaw concede was a game flaw to be fixed in the next version was reused environments.
Riddleofsteel
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I liked Dragon Age 2, I really did. I'm also going to replay it at some point. But I have to disagree with you on the 'ten times' better deal. There are too many blatant weak points to DA2 that prevent me from giving it the nod over Origins. I'm also curious why you so staunchly keep beating a dead horse about the health poultices and "strategery" when it comes to Origins. I NEVER had to do spam them, even on Hard and Nightmare.
I absolutely disagree with you. I am enjoying it to an extent, but it is in most ways a step back from DA:O.
WabeWalker
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Origins was actually a dumbed down version of Shadows of Amn. I saw that in ten seconds of playing it.
I experienced one tactical battle in Origins. One. In DA2, most of the battles are tactical. I have to pause all the time while playing. I'm still baffled why people think Origins was The Second Coming. I waited on that game for five years, and went to the forums and posted about how great it was going to be - god it was a disaster. And quite frankly, I've only realized how bad it was from playing DA 2.
WabeWalker
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PrincessFrosty
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Yahtzee is the only reviewer I've seen that sticks to his guns amongst a wash of reviewers who are all itching to throw 10/10 scores at the latest repetitive CoD release. He calls games out on their bullshit first and foremost and if he runs out of things to complain about then you might hear the good points, If I hear a flat out rant from him then I know what I'm dealing with is something pretty crap which is exactly what my opinion of DA2 is.
Inventory improvement does not a game make, I for one don't care about minor "improvements" what I care about is whether the game is good or not and hearing him slam it as a cheap money making sequel could not be more square on he nose correct. If he tears it to pieces with no time to spit out a kind word then I know exactly what I'm dealing with.
Sure he is, his reviews have more to them than just feedback on the game, they're entertaining, but that doesn't invalidate the point he's making, he's not a traditional reviewer, in fact he admits in one video that people should think of his as an appraiser by exception, anything he doesn't tear to bits we can assume is at least reasonably well built, and actually using that context I've taken something away from every one of his reviews and I find myself agreeing with the guy a lot.
Plague_Injected
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But he doesn't agree with the slew of other "professional" reviews. Therefore, his opinion is discounted. 
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I fixed your post for you.
Is your need to have others love DA2 to the same extent as you so great that you feel the need to change a persons post if it differs from your own opinion?
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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Cooldowns make the combat better? Including waves of mobs that spawn out of the air? For fucks sakes. That is what I consider retarded.
WabeWalker
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Ocellaris
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The only problematic cooldown is the 40 second cooldown on the one Heal spell in the game. And even then, that is usually only a problem when the AI controlled character do something retarded like stand in AOE. For the attack spells, I really think it helps with combat flow overall since you need to put a bit of though into what you use and when you use it.
The enemies popping out of the air was annoying though. Usually because you would kill a whole pack, go to loot something, and... POOF BACK IN COMBAT as an enemy teleports in front of you.
WabeWalker
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Hmm, I like it way more. There have been a bunch of boss fights I've had to play at least six or seven times to get through them - just the way I like it. And I'm only starting Chapter Two! In Origins there was literally one tough fight. One. Throughout the entire game.
Anyhow, the new Nvidia drivers for people with DX11 cards are amazing, and I'm kind of glad now that I didn't rush through this.
krameriffic
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Origins was an easy game if you stacked up a bunch of lollermages in your party and blew everything to hell before it got within 15 feet of your army of mages. DA2 was easy if you stacked your party with a couple of two hand warriors who blew everything up before they got within OH DEAR.
The combat in both games can be broken with a sickening crack if you play them right. The complaints about the surround spawn enemies being "difficult" only last until you realize that a party with two 2h warriors can slaughter every single non-boss enemy in the game with a host of different AoE skills. That doesn't change the fact that its a contrived way to introduce difficulty into a party that doesn't have overpowered 2h warriors.
The combat is an example of one step forward and one step backward. There some nice advances in terms of strategy, balance and pacing that are all fucked in the ass by the stupid enemy spam design of the battles. The combat works, even if its design bugs some people. What cannot and will not ever be forgiven about DA2 is the repetitive environments, the uninteresting, directionless story and the fact that the entire game exists only for the sake of setting up another game. THIS is the true failure of DA2.
Parmenides
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long cooldowns on potion drinking is cool imho, but long cooldowns on a mage's means to sustain a fight doesn't sound good.
Ocellaris
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Recent conversation with a friend of mine:
Me: How are you liking DA2?
Friend: Its great
Me: How far in?
Friend: 10 hours. Can't wait to get out of the city!
Me: Yeah you spend a lot of time in that city... Seriously... So what part of the story are you in?
Friend: I dunno
Me: No I mean like, what quests and shit are you working on?
Friend: Just doing whatever is in my log so I can go to Deep Roads
Me: Why are you going to Deep Roads?
Friend: No idea, still waiting for something to happen.
WabeWalker
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I don't know why, but the recycled environments don't bother me - maybe it's because I'm more focused on the fighting. I also don't approach Bioware games from a point of exploration. Bethesda RPGs - yes. Bioware RPGs - no.
WabeWalker
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Mike Laidlaw's final thoughts.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/index.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;1
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/index.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;1
I tried these drivers. All I can say is about fucking time ! Now I can play the game as it was intended. Everything maxed. On my GTX 580 the improvement was supposed to be 326 % .
Don't know about that but these drivers work.
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I agree with most of the opinions and motivations he puts forward there. I do enjoy the more narrow (focused?) storyline. It's not the save-world+plus dog plot of DA:O (or of most games), but it is a nice change to focus on a more character-driven story that shows you the nitty-gritty of the Dragon Age universe. The companions are more subdued in their good v. bad stance, but at the same time, are more nuanced than in the original. Also, I'll be damned, but I do enjoy the faster combat, maybe because I'm experienced already practiced at setting up attacks from the first game.
There are some statements he makes where he is very obviously wearing rose-colored glasses. The fact that you can't equip party members with armor is obvious indicative of a rush job. Alos lazy is the repetition of levels and some of the interface schemes that totally lack any adornment to save time/money.
I got the impression that DA 2=NWN, DA:O=Baldur's Gate.
Both fun games IMO. I still think you're selling DA:O short; they did a lot of things right in that game.
LeninGHOLA
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This could be completely replaced by limiting the amount of potions there are in a game, so you would only use them when you needed them, eliminating the Diablo 2 chugging contest style of play. They could also implement a Gothic style system that made you stop your current action, put away your weapon, and then drink your potion. Cooldowns, in general, are not something I praise in an RPG. If you drink 4 potions in battle, it should make you sluggish and bloated, or need to pee, or raise your toxicity, or do kidney/liver damage to you, or have a chance of the enemy combatant shattering your potion bottle doing glass damage to your face.
I like the idea of increased percentage chance to become diseased with prolonged potion usage. Overusage of lyrium potions, as implied in the game, can cause madness. Unfortunately, you never see this happen directly.
DA2 combat has also changed in that you cannot miss your opponent, now you hit a glancing blow instead of missing, but it still does damage. Basically, it is a game of hitpoint bloat and artificially long fights with waves of mobs that materialize out of thin air.
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WabeWalker
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I agree with you about the areas being recycled - that, I think, really was one consequence of Bioware having to rush the game to market.
But I really disagree with your statement here about the clothing.
I saw immediately that we were being denied the ability to equip our characters with armor because Bioware didn't want us tampering with their identities. There's an expression: clothes make the man. People define themselves by the clothing they wear. Varic would not be Varic without that pimp housecoat he wears. Bethany is wearing exactly the right clothing for a sister Mage.
In Origins, I put Sten in the Blood Dragon armor, and immediately he was no longer identifiable as Sten - he was just some generic fighter. In DA2, I felt it was a great idea to create such personal clothing for the companions, and just leave it at that.
But anyway, what's going to be really interesting is Dragon Age 3! Which changes will stick, which ones will Bioware revert to, and what completely new ones will be made?
Unless you have a source for this, I don't see how you can say it. Bioware likely didn't want to try to balance the game for different combinations of equipment you can use on your NPCs, and so made their game balancing duties easier by taking those choices away from the player, thus creating predictable-strength NPCs that are easier to balance.
But this is usually done for expediency on the developer's part, and certainly not out of some sense that 'Sten needs to look like a certain way.'
The NWN single-player campaign had this same mechanic, and it was incredibly unpopular. But at least then you could understand that Bioware was focusing their resources on creating a game engine and toolset to let players make their own games, and that perhaps the single player campaign was not their primary focus.
In succeeding games they allowed you to modify NPC inventories, much like the Baldur's Gate series, or The Old Republic games.
It seems reasonable to think that they were under some sort of time pressures to get this game out, and made some shortcuts in game development to compensate. The lack of the ability to modify NPC equipment is just one indicator of this. There appear to be others, as already discussed in this and similar threads.
TwistedAegis
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Shortcut or not, I ended up liking the companion armor. I hated putting on random "trash" armor on my companions in DA:O and having them look retarded.
That being said, even in DA2, can Bioware design a single helm for a mage that doesn't make you look like a fruitcake?!?!
That being said, even in DA2, can Bioware design a single helm for a mage that doesn't make you look like a fruitcake?!?!
Actually I just read posts from Mike Laidlaw that claims they made the decision so that Sten would loo like their conception of Sten, and not whatever you decide to equip him with. Although in defense of my prior statements, I think you can justify just about any short cut.
He says he looked at screenshots of DA:O and, towards the end, everyone's party looked the same, because they all used similar equipment. But why not just make different models for equipment for different characters, if you want the NPCs to look different? They should do this for player classes, too, so equipping said helmet doesn't make you look like a fruitcake.
He says he looked at screenshots of DA:O and, towards the end, everyone's party looked the same, because they all used similar equipment. But why not just make different models for equipment for different characters, if you want the NPCs to look different? They should do this for player classes, too, so equipping said helmet doesn't make you look like a fruitcake.
WabeWalker
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I don't know what you mean by 'source'?
You want me to provide you with a source from Bioware? But I just did that? I just linked to the Gamespot article in which Mike Laidlaw said the exact same thing?
Here:
"Gamespot: You have less control over your companions since you can't equip them directly as you can Hawke. Can you describe the idea behind this particular change, and did you feel that you might be running the risk of players not feeling as much of a connection to those characters?
Mike Laidlaw: The key driver behind it was the idea of unique visuals, being able to have Isabela stay Isabela instead of generic rogue put into the same leather armor your character is wearing. It lets us create a visual space between Hawke and the companions. And it gives the companions their own personalities [in the form of] unique body models and animations that are tied to how they idle--simple stuff like Aveline and the way she stands with more of a straightforward stance as opposed to the cocked hip Isabela has and so on. The overall goal there was to keep the companions in a place where they had more personality, but still provide customization in terms of amulets and rings, because having things like fire resistance is important."
Let me guess. Now you're probably going to say something like, I call bullshit on Mike Laidlaw.
In which case you're putting me in a no-win situation. You wanted a source, so I provided it. If you don't believe that Mike Laidlaw is telling the truth, then which 'source' am I supposed to provide?
Also, are you aware that you CAN upgrade the armor of your companions - you're provided the opportunity to do so in each act, by visiting the vendors. Whether you choose to or not is completely up to you. That's virtually the same as equipping your characters, meaning Bioware still had to work out the balancing issues. So no time was saved there. That's not why they were doing it anyhow - this was clearly a decision to create characters that were more identifiable and had more personality.
Again, in Origins, Sten was Sten, until I put him in that Blood Dragon Armor, at which point he was just another generic fighter. Not putting him in the armor, by the way, was hardly an option, since I would have been gimping him. In Dragon Age 2, Varic has massive amounts of personality - that pimp robe of his is a huge part of his character. Therefore, when you level-up his armor, it stays looking the same, since Bioware doesn't want to destroy his identity. Don't you have friends who wear the same type of clothing year after year - I sure as hell do.
Also, the Gamespot guy's question is kind of stupid. How would removing, say, Varic's robe, and outfitting him with some generic piece of armor, make him more real? That's just silly. You're doing the opposite in equipping him. All you're doing is stripping away his identity. Where does Gamespot hire its employees? From its own forums?
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Shalafi
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You're also removing control from the players, never a good thing.
WabeWalker
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In this case it is a very good thing.
I wish I could link to an article I have from an early issue of Computer Gaming World, in which Chris Crawford, at the 'Game Developers' Conference' (I believe it took place in his house), talked about this very issue: how a game can be improved by REMOVING choice from gamers.
This is actually the perfect example of that.
Shalafi
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It's simply unacceptable in 2011 and makes the game less interactive, sorry man, but you're wrong here, as you usually are.
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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What kind of logic is that? The game is better because you no longer have to play it like a party based RPG? I say we just drop the whole genre and move to scripted QTE's!!
All they needed to do was create unique and decent looking armor and you wouldn't have the problem of your characters all looking the same or looking stupid. We like to call it itemization. DA:O lacked proper itemization, and DA2 even goes further down the wrong path.
When you take choice out of a players hands, you start playing interactive movies.
All they needed to do was create unique and decent looking armor and you wouldn't have the problem of your characters all looking the same or looking stupid. We like to call it itemization. DA:O lacked proper itemization, and DA2 even goes further down the wrong path.
When you take choice out of a players hands, you start playing interactive movies.
Yes, I absolutely believe you do. Agreement is reached on this point, at least.
I don't understand how having the ability to equip NPCs is stripping away their identity, particularly in a single player game. All that would enable players to do is customize their NPCs and their apperances. Identity remains intact. You can put Morganna in armor (assuming you pimp her strength), but she's still Claudia Black. I mean, Morganna.
You're arguing that the decision to have less equipment options for NPCs is a good one, and I can't agree with you. I regretted the decision in NWN, and it seems like Bioware has almost gone back to this sort of gameplay mechanic.