Dragon Age Origins discussion...

S

sbtim

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
211
ok, for anyone who does actually have the game, what do you think about the A.I.?

Personally, my party members seem dumb as rocks. They don't move without me telling them to, they dont attack without me telling them to, the ranged characters sit behind objects and try to attack and get blocked, and my party members RARELY ever actually do anything except for auto attack.

I cannot figure out how to make them less stupid, I have their tactics set to the most agressive I can, but they still refuse to do anything unless I sit there and tell them to. Which I just won't do, considering I don't think you can even queue spells or abilities and pausing the game for EVERY command is just too much.

if anyone could help.... id appreciate it... because i cannot get past the first boss. the gameplay in dragon age is seriously breaking my balls. I've played quite a few rpgs in my day but this is just infuriating.
 
Last edited:
Sadly sounds a lot like most of the rpg AI that I've ever seen.

I won't have my copy until next Monday (the 9th) so I can't offer advice yet, but I am so looking forward to trying this out.

If I do come across any revelations once I get it I'll definately post back here though.
 
sigh, any time anyone in my party gets stunned, knocked down, farted on, whatever, they stop attacking. i have to sit there, pause the game, tell them to attack every 5 seconds or so it seems.

i really dont know what to say, this game is great except for the absolute TERRIBLE combat system. I do not know how this even made it into release like this.
 
sbtim said:
Personally, my party members seem dumb as rocks. They don't move without me telling them to, they dont attack without me telling them to, the ranged characters sit behind objects and try to attack and get blocked, and my party members RARELY ever actually do anything except for auto attack.
Click to expand...
Good, that's exactly what I want them to do. It's BGisk party gameplay control which I've been waiting years for! This isn't NWN or ME where you just control 1 member and the AI does the rest. No lazy gamers here.
I cannot figure out how to make them less stupid, I have their tactics set to the most agressive I can, but they still refuse to do anything unless I sit there and tell them to. Which I just won't do, considering I don't think you can even queue spells or abilities and pausing the game for EVERY command is just too much.
Click to expand...
Sorry, it's how the game is meant to be played. It's not a bug. This is a party/tactical oriented game where you have to micromanage your group. Lots of pausing to view the battlefield situation and input commands.
i really dont know what to say, this game is great except for the absolute TERRIBLE combat system. I do not know how this even made it into release like this.
Click to expand...
Sorry it's not your cup of tea but you're supposed to be doing that.
 
k, finally managed to beat him because my mage pulled aggro and the boss chased him around the room for half an hour.

wow..
 
Last edited:
sbtim said:
k, finally managed to beat him because my mage pulled aggro and the boss chased him around the room for half an hour.

wow..
Click to expand...

Don't take this the wrong way, but your tears and hardship brings a smile to my face! DIFFICULTY !!!!!!!!!



It would probably be easier to you if you played bg, but thenI can't really say as I can't play mine yet cause it does not release until tomorrow, but I am not bitter over it..


Don't let your guys die, pause, micro, profit. It's not a shooter, can't just run in guns blazing or deal with mechanics that take seconds to compensate for, it sounds like you may have to plan out some of the battle and what gets taken down and healed and etc first.
 
the thing is the boss never chased after anyone until the 10th try.

of course being a long time WoW player I knew that kiting a stupid boss is a pretty good strategy.
 
Lol these type of rpg's normally aren't my cup of tea but I might have to get this game for the challenge alone if what you're saying is true.

I found mass effect/fallout 3 to be way to easy so this game could be fun despite not having real control of your character.
 
it was only hard because i managed to royally screw up and die about 50 times in the tower. i didnt know there was a penalty for dying. the game never explained it.

also i really want to get through the game so i can do this morrigan chick. she is really hot.
 
I'm telling you right now.. on combat YOU WILL PAUSE A MILLION TIMES because your ai companions are such morons you have no choice or you will die a lot... this game is not easy by anymeans but its badass.
 
That first boss was relatively easy for me. Just had to micro mange and pause it lol.
 
ok, for anyone who does actually have the game, what do you think about the A.I.?

Personally, my party members seem dumb as rocks. They don't move without me telling them to, they dont attack without me telling them to, the ranged characters sit behind objects and try to attack and get blocked, and my party members RARELY ever actually do anything except for auto attack.

I cannot figure out how to make them less stupid, I have their tactics set to the most agressive I can, but they still refuse to do anything unless I sit there and tell them to. Which I just won't do, considering I don't think you can even queue spells or abilities and pausing the game for EVERY command is just too much.

if anyone could help.... id appreciate it... because i cannot get past the first boss. the gameplay in dragon age is seriously breaking my balls. I've played quite a few rpgs in my day but this is just infuriating.
Click to expand...
Erm...that's what you're supposed to do. This is a radically different approach to a game like Fallout 3 where everything is in real-time. From what I've read and heard so far it sounds pretty close to Baldur's Gate 2. You basically have to do micromanage every single one of your party as if they were your only character. If you can do that without pausing, I admire your micro skills. If you can't, that's what Pause is for.
 
villain71 said:
I'm telling you right now.. on combat YOU WILL PAUSE A MILLION TIMES because your ai companions are such morons you have no choice or you will die a lot... this game is not easy by anymeans but its badass.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I want to hear. I'm getting this game then.
 
Sounds like good old Baldur's Gate gameplay. I'd assume a lot of people will be turned off by this gameplay type but sounds like I'm going to have a blast. The 5 year wait is finally over. :D
 
sbtim said:
of course being a long time WoW player
Click to expand...

No flame intended as I'm a former player myself, but I think this is the problem. WoW as a whole is so ridiculously easy. The only real challenge now is finding the IRL time to dedicate to all of its various time sinks. I was playing up until a month ago, and while the honor grind is balanced for one level 80, I have at least 3 characters I wanted to actually do arena with. I've said F it for now and canceled my sub, but you can bet I (and just about everyone who quits) will be back for Cataclysm.

As for Dragon Age, I think it's a love/hate thing. Either you like the old/tactical style of combat or you're more for the "console easy mode" style.

edit: picking up my copy later today hopefully, can't wait.
 
I'm a huge, huge admirer of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows Of Amn, and in my opinion Dragon Age, which was supposed to be the spiritual predecessor to that game, doesn't even come close.

First of all, people need to be aware that you can't even queue up orders - yup, that's right, you can only give one order at a time. Those insanely difficult battles that you'd have in BG2, in which it was touch and go right to the end, and where you had to figure out which spells needed to be cast, and in what order, and where you sometimes even had to pre-buff your party members just to make it through, are pretty much non-existent. I encountered tougher battles in NWN 2 - and in that game you did have to queue up spells.

Believe me, I had been hoping for greatness here - but this ain't it.

DA is a very good game, don't get me wrong. But people need to be a little more sober about this game. It's not The Second Coming. I made the mistake of thinking that myself. I might not even give this my personal game of the year stamp. I need to finish it first, but so far, it's not actually the brilliantly great game I had been expecting (and certainly hoping) it to be.

If I had to put my finger on what's wrong here: I'd have to say it was because the console got in the way. Bioware obviously made decisions that were aimed at pleasing the console crowd, and those decisions have had a negative impact on the game - again, that's in my opinion. Playing the game you can just sense an odor that's got console written all over it.

Some people, at this precise moment, simply aren't willing to listen to anything negative that's said about this game - and I accept that - but honestly there are some problems with this game. A bit of a shocker for me, personally.

(I'll start my stopwatch now - how long will it be before a string of obscenities are hurtled my way?)
 
I can see, from reading my own post, that I wasn't specific enough.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

If you're a spellcaster, then there's a cool-down effect for your spells. This works exactly as it does in Guild Wars (in fact, Dragon Age plays much more like Guild Wars than it does BG2, if you can believe that!) You click on Chain Lightning, for example, and a little radial dial, like a clock, quickly starts turning around to let you know when you can use Chain Lightning again (it's usually about 4 seconds). Meanwhile you move on to another spell, such as Fireball, and again watch the little radial dial start spinning around.

All you do, during combat as a mage, is start clicking on the numbers in your quickbar and wait for the cooldown effects to wear off or to cycle around. Yeah, it's EXACTLY like Guild Wars. There's no queuing up of spells to speak of. Nor is this even strategic. You're simply clicking buttons in rapid fashion.

I was shocked by this. Honestly, there's no strategy involved at all. If you can click buttons rapidly then you should be able to win any battle. I was left with a hollow feeling after playing tonight. I never engaged in a battle that made me need to think. It's a pretty shallow experience actually.

Again, people are going to be wowed at first. But if you really are a fan of BG then the cracks will begin to show fairly quickly. Click on 1. Click on 2. Click on 3. Oh, 2 is ready again, click on that. 1 is ready again, click on that. Click on 3. Click on 1.... I mean, Jesus, you're just waiting for the cool-downs to cycle through. A five year old kid could do it.
 
I'm saddened by the release day downloadable extras.
Still I've ordered the game, but am loath to buy any extras.
Put them in the damn game from the start so the game is built around them and charge a few £ more, rather than the DLC making the game easier!
Cheeky sods.
 
WabeWalker said:
I'm a huge, huge admirer of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows Of Amn...
Click to expand...
I think it was always going to be a big ask for Bioware to match the depth of BGII as they were building a new magic & combat system, and that was before EA bought the company and maybe influenced things to be dumbed down even more. I've often noticed the pen & paper DnD fans grumbling on the Bioware forums that the DnD rulesets have gotten worse with each new edition, so I do sometimes wonder if BGII had such great tactical play because it was founded on an excellent ruleset and for that reason we may never see BGII surpassed.

Bioware can do great things without the DnD licence, I thought Knights of the Old Republic was a terrific game though it too lacked tactical depth. I'm hoping DA can at least live up to KOTOR, though I'm now thinking it may be sensible to wait for some patches and fan created content. Decent AI scripts would be a good start (and actually poor companion AI was utterly predictable from Bioware.) Dependent the pricing and quality of the extra content it may even be a better idea to wait for a game of the year edition.

Are the story, dialogue and characters up to the usual high standard expected of Bioware?
 
IanM said:
I think it was always going to be a big ask for Bioware to match the depth of BGII as they were building a new magic & combat system, and that was before EA bought the company and maybe influenced things to be dumbed down even more. I've often noticed the pen & paper DnD fans grumbling on the Bioware forums that the DnD rulesets have gotten worse with each new edition, so I do sometimes wonder if BGII had such great tactical play because it was founded on an excellent ruleset and for that reason we may never see BGII surpassed.

Bioware can do great things without the DnD licence, I thought Knights of the Old Republic was a terrific game though it too lacked tactical depth. I'm hoping DA can at least live up to KOTOR, though I'm now thinking it may be sensible to wait for some patches and fan created content. Decent AI scripts would be a good start (and actually poor companion AI was utterly predictable from Bioware.) Dependent the pricing and quality of the extra content it may even be a better idea to wait for a game of the year edition.

Are the story, dialogue and characters up to the usual high standard expected of Bioware?
Click to expand...

BGII was good despite the DnD rule set, not because of it. DnD has never translated well to video games, it simply wasn't made that way. 4th Edition aka WoW on a table-top might translate, but I wouldn't want to play it. KOTOR used 3rd Edition rules which were heavily simplified compared to 2nd/AD&D and the simplification translated better. NWN as well.
 
Derangel said:
BGII was good despite the DnD rule set, not because of it.
Click to expand...
I'm not interested in DnD itself, or PnP role playing, but I see this point of view and I remain sceptical. We're talking specifically about the tactical battles in BGII compared with DA and the other Bioware RPGs. In BGII there is a very strong influence of using the right spells at the right time to be successful, managing vulnerabilities and getting the fighters into a position where they can do their damage. In other games inc DA, it seems to be a simple numbers game: who has got the most fire power and score the most hits in the shortest space of time. Flaws or not, the magic system and balance of DnD 2nd edition in BGII gives rise to a phenomenal amount of replay value, drama and excitement in that games encounters.
 
IanM said:
I'm not interested in DnD itself, or PnP role playing, but I see this point of view and I remain sceptical. We're talking specifically about the tactical battles in BGII compared with DA and the other Bioware RPGs. In BGII there is a very strong influence of using the right spells at the right time to be successful, managing vulnerabilities and getting the fighters into a position where they can do their damage. In other games inc DA, it seems to be a simple numbers game: who has got the most fire power and score the most hits in the shortest space of time. Flaws or not, the magic system and balance of DnD 2nd edition in BGII gives rise to a phenomenal amount of replay value, drama and excitement in that games encounters.
Click to expand...

Oh there were some good elements of the rule set that worked, but as a whole it didn't translate well. Bioware and Black Isle took the rules and found a way to adapt them well enough, something most games with the license did not. The way magic worked was interesting due to the whole spell memorization concept in the PnP and it worked very well there, yet in video games it was an odd concept. Bioware actually simplified some elements of 2nd Ed to make it work.
 
How disappointing I am to hear about the negative comments about DA.

I played BG/ BGII/ IWD/ IWDII/ PsT each more than 5 times. I have been waiting for another good CRPG for ages and DA gave me very high hope.

Oblivion and FO3 were craps IMHO. Mass Effect was disappointing and boring but I understand it was a console game. If DA does not deliver, it will disgust me to no end and will make me feel that Bioware has betrayed its customers.....

Regardless, I will be buying the game. /sigh
 
Say it ain't so. I was actually looking forward to this showing up in the mail, after my initial stance on the game changed.
 
It's still early, but we seem to be seeing two very different types of complaints. In another thread we have the complaint that DA is shit because you have to pause to give orders and it's not open worldy enough, basically that it's too far on the strategic-story end to please newer action-gamers who's looking for Halflife set in Middle-Earth.

In this thread we have the complaint that it doesn't provide the strategic depth of BG in combat, with action queuing and the importance of positioning.

This is precisely the scenario I was afraid of; that the game would be pulled between two irreconcilable designs. What you get is something that will please a few in the middle, and make everyone else go 'meh'.

The PR was obviously created in order to pull in the first group. So targeted, that people who came for 'spiritual successor to BG' started to say 'WTH, I'm losing interest in this game, what are you doing?'

They clearly said that this game would keep to the spirit of Baldur's Gate, which I've always had my doubts about. What then happens when the action-seeking players start the game and realize they need to PAUSE to win? Why, they'll say 'fuck this'. Hardly unexpected. And they'll tell their friends, and they'll post their meta-critic ratings. So that audience leaves, and those of us who stuck around looking for BG2, what of us? What's left there for us after you catered to consoles and action-players who'll never accept even your watered down RPG-experience?

I hope to play it this weekend, but these reports are beginning to confirm my worst fear: Dragon Age: Origins is a compromise way short of that promise. The promise of a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.
 
I don't think anyone expects a game exactly like BG2. Frankly, after ten years, I sort of think we're within our rights to expect a game to at least attempt to surpass it; to have even more fun strategic gameplay, better game-system, highly improved writing, deeper story, even more memorable characters, better multiplayer, more varied environments, better UI, shorter loading times, spectacular graphics, crisp sfx, and a fantastic score.

That's a lot to ask, but Bioware was built off the back of Baldur's Gate. They owe their existance to this series of games, and now their mouth is saying ''we're totally working in the spirit of BG'' while their products scream "we're way too cool to touch that old shit''

Call it unrealistic expectations, entitlement issues or whatever, but their whole attitude towards CRPGs is starting to piss me off.

Just... kill off all hope, release me of my suffering already.
 
How many of the people already complaining this early have actually played the game for any appreciable amount of time?
 
WabeWalker said:
I'm a huge, huge admirer of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows Of Amn, and in my opinion Dragon Age, which was supposed to be the spiritual predecessor to that game, doesn't even come close.

First of all, people need to be aware that you can't even queue up orders - yup, that's right, you can only give one order at a time. Those insanely difficult battles that you'd have in BG2, in which it was touch and go right to the end, and where you had to figure out which spells needed to be cast, and in what order, and where you sometimes even had to pre-buff your party members just to make it through, are pretty much non-existent. I encountered tougher battles in NWN 2 - and in that game you did have to queue up spells.

Believe me, I had been hoping for greatness here - but this ain't it.

DA is a very good game, don't get me wrong. But people need to be a little more sober about this game. It's not The Second Coming. I made the mistake of thinking that myself. I might not even give this my personal game of the year stamp. I need to finish it first, but so far, it's not actually the brilliantly great game I had been expecting (and certainly hoping) it to be.

If I had to put my finger on what's wrong here: I'd have to say it was because the console got in the way. Bioware obviously made decisions that were aimed at pleasing the console crowd, and those decisions have had a negative impact on the game - again, that's in my opinion. Playing the game you can just sense an odor that's got console written all over it.

Some people, at this precise moment, simply aren't willing to listen to anything negative that's said about this game - and I accept that - but honestly there are some problems with this game. A bit of a shocker for me, personally.

(I'll start my stopwatch now - how long will it be before a string of obscenities are hurtled my way?)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up. I was looking for the next KOTOR or BG2. (Has it really been 10 years?!?!) I think I'll skip this game then.

Nenu said:
I'm saddened by the release day downloadable extras.
Still I've ordered the game, but am loath to buy any extras.
Put them in the damn game from the start so the game is built around them and charge a few £ more, rather than the DLC making the game easier!
Cheeky sods.
Click to expand...
DLC on day 1 that they charge for is just wrong. Seriously, I'm tired of this bullshit that is "lets work harderd on trying to find ways to screw our customers out of money" instead of "lets publish a great game so everyone buys it" mentality. What's next? I pay 60$ for a game to find out that Madden 2012 only comes with 6 teams and I have to pay 1$ for the rest?

djm232 said:
No flame intended as I'm a former player myself, but I think this is the problem. WoW as a whole is so ridiculously easy. The only real challenge now is finding the IRL time to dedicate to all of its various time sinks.
Click to expand...
There are MUCH better MMOs out there if you want a challenge. I'm looking forward to FFXIV and praying they don't "dumb it down" from the original.

Riddleofsteel said:
Makes sense, I guess. A game like exactly like BG2 is essentially un-doable in this day.
Click to expand...
It probably is. People just don't understand why they should have to fight a boss twice.
 
I don't see how 'pleasing the console crowd' could have effected this game since it was in development for 3 years before it was announced for consoles. Anyways, you can't tell me that not queuing up multiple combat/spells is not possible on consoles. They must of did that for a reason or they just forgot it. It could be added in a patch.
 
vengence said:
DLC on day 1 that they charge for is just wrong. Seriously, I'm tired of this bullshit that is "lets work harderd on trying to find ways to screw our customers out of money" instead of "lets publish a great game so everyone buys it" mentality. What's next? I pay 60$ for a game to find out that Madden 2012 only comes with 6 teams and I have to pay 1$ for the rest?
Click to expand...
I really don't like DLC either, but...is anyone really arguing DA:O doesn't have enough content on its own? It doesn't look like a game that's skimped in order to nickel and dime you on the DLC. Even the storage thing that's upset people will have a mod out very shortly, I'm sure.
It probably is. People just don't understand why they should have to fight a boss twice.
Click to expand...
People have been complaining that it's too hard on normal (on consoles with no friendly fire?!?!), so I'm sure nightmare will satisfy people like us :)

Reviews seem very good, with the negative stuff predominantly just "I don't like BG type RPGs". The Eurogamer review thought it wasn't enough like Oblivion, for example, which is clearly an excellent sign.
 
Is it me or is that one of the highest ratings I've seen Gamespot give out? At least for the PC.
 
Only Diablo (9.6) higher for all time. Half life, Red Alert, Civ IV, Freespace 2 around it. Pretty nice company.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top