Dragon Age II

[AndreaDraco]

1. It's clunky. I have to scroll side ways to see all the talents. Why are the talents just not on one page, going down the page? Why do I need to scroll over three times to the right, or three times to the left to reach specific talent trees? Why is it ONE talent tree per page?

It isn't this way on the PC. On PC every talent tree is on the same page.

2. It's ugly. It looks like it's a talent tree from a 1980 RPG game.

This I can agree with. I very much preferred DA:O stylish, painted icons than these stylized ones.

Why is the dialogue, which I once valued so much in DAO, dumbed down to "Twilight Level"?

In this regard I have mixed feeling. The game oscillates between childish dialogues that are really cringe-worthy (for example: Bethany), mediocre lines that manages to be mildly fun (for example: Isabela), very sweet conversations (for example: Merrill), sassy remarks that always make me laugh (for example: Varric) and incredibly deep, thought-provoking conversations (for example: Anders).

All the dialogue on the trivial quests when he returns them to people is the same exact dialogue. ("I believe this belongs to you"/"I believe you lost something" - paraphrasing - there's no additional dialogue with these trivial quests and these NPCs you're doing favors for - making it feel even MORE trivial).

What I said above about the writing is true even for the quests. There are certain quests that are really trivial (return a shawl you find randomly) or stupid/boring (go to place X and fight Y) and others, like "Enemies Amongst Us" or "Wayward Son", that are better than almost any side-quest seen in DA:O.

[Maiandra]

Speaking of things I miss or that irks me, I hate that now, as a Mage, to cast Group Heal, I have to activated a sustained mode beforehand that doesn't allow me to cast any type of aggressive spell. Since I'm building my character to be a pure caster/damager that stands afar from the heat of combat, it's a real hassle to activate Cleansing Aura just to cast Group Heal. And, on top of that, no mage companion can ever learn that spell, since it's part of a specialization that only the main character can take.

I don't use healing spells very often, but I can see how that would be frustrating, especially if you can't delegate it to a party member. It reminds me of how they implemented the keeper spells in DA:O, where you had to use that mode to cast any of the subsequent ones, or how Shale's abilities worked. That general design (having to activate a mode to use certain spells/abilities) seems like an unnecessary and pointless step. I don't see what they were trying to accomplish with that, since it was obviously a design decision.

2. It's ugly. It looks like it's a talent tree from a 1980 RPG game.

This I can agree with. I very much preferred DA:O stylish, painted icons than these stylized ones.

I haven't given it enough of a try to comment on it's functionality, but I did notice in the demo that the icons all looked very "primitive" and it was not the refined, professional-looking interface I expected of a BioWare game. Another casualty of EA's rush to get the game out the door, I imagine. To me, it isn't a deal-breaker, since it's more of a peripheral cosmetic issue, but it certainly reinforces the "rushed" feeling of the entire game production quality.

Why are enemies exploding when I hit them with my sword?

I wondered the same thing when I back-stabbed them during the demo. How exactly does a backstab with a dagger (albeit a funky-looking one) result in the torso getting severed from the legs?

I like some of the combat moves, like the rogue's acrobatics and how the mage flourishes the staff, but the gore is a little excessive when killing enemies. It reminds me of BG1 when the gore toggle kept getting stuck to "on" and enemies would explode when I shot them with a normal arrow. The gore toggle in DA2 should apply to the gore animations as well as the persistent gore.

I think I will have to approach the game from the mindset that it's not a BioWare RPG, but just a generic action-RPG. Then I can possibly enjoy it because I won't have certain expectations of it. I just hope that they don't make a habit of their RPGs being like this. DA3 better damn well be, well, better.

[DeadPoolX]

I think I will have to approach the game from the mindset that it's not a BioWare RPG, but just a generic action-RPG. Then I can possibly enjoy it because I won't have certain expectations of it. I just hope that they don't make a habit of their RPGs being like this. DA3 better damn well be, well, better.

Basically, you have to look at it like KQ8/MoE.

It's the 8th KQ game, so by default it's "KQ8." However, it's not a KQ game beyond the title itself. It would be a good (or at least decent) game on its own, but as part of the KQ series, it fails to live up the name.

It's interesting that when developing KQ8/MoE Sierra was already taken over and had very little say in its overall production. Likewise, BioWare belongs to EA and has suffered in a similar manner.

I suppose the lesson learned is that when a company loses full control over its assets, the final product will rarely turn out well.

[Tawmis]

1. It's clunky. I have to scroll side ways to see all the talents. Why are the talents just not on one page, going down the page? Why do I need to scroll over three times to the right, or three times to the left to reach specific talent trees? Why is it ONE talent tree per page?

It isn't this way on the PC. On PC every talent tree is on the same page.

Curse the PC for having a better lay out!

Such is not the way on the X360. I need to tap the tab thing at the top of the controller for each talent tree. Having them all on one page made things infinitely easier to see what you wanted to select next.

All the dialogue on the trivial quests when he returns them to people is the same exact dialogue. ("I believe this belongs to you"/"I believe you lost something" - paraphrasing - there's no additional dialogue with these trivial quests and these NPCs you're doing favors for - making it feel even MORE trivial).

What I said above about the writing is true even for the quests. There are certain quests that are really trivial (return a shawl you find randomly) or stupid/boring (go to place X and fight Y) and others, like "Enemies Amongst Us" or "Wayward Son", that are better than almost any side-quest seen in DA:O.

So far I am not seeing anything that's been better than DAO, in terms of quests.

[Tawmis]

Basically, you have to look at it like KQ8/MoE.
It's the 8th KQ game, so by default it's "KQ8." However, it's not a KQ game beyond the title itself. It would be a good (or at least decent) game on its own, but as part of the KQ series, it fails to live up the name.
It's interesting that when developing KQ8/MoE Sierra was already taken over and had very little say in its overall production. Likewise, BioWare belongs to EA and has suffered in a similar manner.
I suppose the lesson learned is that when a company loses full control over its assets, the final product will rarely turn out well.

It's that idea that worries me. Dragon Age began before EA consumed Bioware. Now we see what happens when EA's fingers are in the cookie jar from start to finish. It's like when whoever took over Sierra saying, "This is what gamers want..." And now EA's doing the same with Bioware. And that was the beginning of the end of Sierra as we know it.

[AndreaDraco]

I'm not so pessimist.

Judging from what people say on the official forums, Act 2 and Act 3 are incredibly better than Act 1, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see for myself.

[Tawmis]

I'm not so pessimist.
Judging from what people say on the official forums, Act 2 and Act 3 are incredibly better than Act 1, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see for myself.

As someone who writes on the side - I am by no stretch of the imagination a professional... But I do my fair share of writing.

If you don't capture your audience within the first (few) chapters, they will never read far enough to get into later chapters...

I am willing to wait and see myself. Emphasis on the wait. I have no pull to play the game.

They should have focused on making the first chapter far more exciting, like they did with Dragon Age Origins.

I think I have like 5 or so hours of play time into DA2. And I don't feel excited. They've done something wrong.

[AndreaDraco]

I think I have like 5 or so hours of play time into DA2. And I don't feel excited. They've done something wrong.

I restarted it and now have something like 8 hours of playtime. Aside from the companions quests, which are generally good, and the few ones I mentioned before, it's true that it's a somewhat lackluster chapter. However, they say that, starting from the Deep Roads expedition, things start to get exciting.

[DeadPoolX]

A full patch will be available on Monday that addresses some major issues, like the single-core save game problem. No word on importing character info, but that's not as important as being able to save the damn game!

Andrea, Tawmis -- have you guys noticed any internal flag issues within DA2? I remember reading that the game itself will inaccurate remember certain actions and choices that you did earlier in the game.

[AndreaDraco]

Andrea, Tawmis -- have you guys noticed any internal flag issues within DA2? I remember reading that the game itself will inaccurate remember certain actions and choices that you did earlier in the game.

If you enable the developer console and run a particular command (runscript zz_vault_debug), you're able to see what's the World State in your current save, based on the savegame you imported. I checked and the only things amiss are those concerning the romances: for example, in my save, it recognize correctly that the Warden had sex with Zevran, but it also says that Zev was not romanced, while, in reality, he was fully romanced, at love. And the same problems seems to occur also with Leliana and Morrigan. Moreover, and this is happening for the vast majority of people, I could go as far as say everyone, the game seems to think that Leliana always slept with Isable at the Pearl.

These are the only flags that the game has problems recognizing, along with what happened to Anders at the end of DA:O:A, especially if you left him at Vigil's Keep but chose to save Amaranthine with Anders being at a Friendly status. Aside from these things, every single reference to DA:O I stumbled upon is correct and, for now, DA2 always recognized perfectly the choices I made before. So, no, fortunately, I haven't stumbled upon this bug and I hope not to!

Also, I find this post by Gaider really interesting:

You know, what's interesting about this is that there's actually almost as much dialogue per follower in DA2 as there was in DAO (barring perhaps Alistair and Morrigan specifically, considering their larger roles in the story). The primary difference is that in DA2 it's spread out. We took a lot of that dialogue you had before at the camp and deliberately put more of it into their personal quests and the intermittent dialogues you have at the follower's base-- that's where you get to ask them their questions, as they come up in context.

My impression is that some people miss being able to get all the dialogue at once. I think there's an urge to get an immediate response for interaction-- click-reward-click-reward, etc. --until they feel they've gotten to know the character and then move onto the rest of the game, even if there's not a lot of dialogue after that point outside of triggered moments.

Maybe that's better, I don't know. It's simply an interesting perception, but whether it's caused by some people simply missing dialogue or because the first act is so long and there's only one major dialogue for a follower there after you recruit them... or something else, I can't really say. I imagine it varies, and the fact that someone feels less connected certainly speaks for itself, but it's not from lack of dialogue. Not everyone feels the same way, of course, but we'll definitely look at the various reactions and tweak it some more. There are indeed some things we tried in DA2 that I don't think we'll try again, but I'm still willing to give it some time to mull over.

The part highlighted is very, very true. The opening act is incredibly, amazingly long: I remember that in DA:O it took me 8-10 hours to reach the first major quest (Broken Circle, in my case), while in DA2 I'm 8 hours in and I haven't even completed half of Act 1.

[DeadPoolX]

So none of the issues concern DA2 itself? Like if I chose to romance Isabela, it wouldn't suddenly decide later that I romanced Merrill instead ? If I do a "good deed" does the game think I did a "bad deed" later?

Those are my real questions, all of which are related to in-game choices in DA2. Although the romances not carrying over from DA:O is somewhat annoying, I could easily live with it. Maia, on the other hand, might have a real issue with this, especially the problem with Anders since he's a potential romance in DA2.

[Tawmis]

Andrea, Tawmis -- have you guys noticed any internal flag issues within DA2? I remember reading that the game itself will inaccurate remember certain actions and choices that you did earlier in the game.

Thus far, nothing seems amiss. But then it seems like they barely make any references to Origins, thus far where I am. They have said that the Grey Warden was there to face the archdemon (which is true in any case), and they properly state who sits on the throne currently.

Also, I find this post by Gaider really interesting:

You know, what's interesting about this is that there's actually almost as much dialogue per follower in DA2 as there was in DAO (barring perhaps Alistair and Morrigan specifically, considering their larger roles in the story). The primary difference is that in DA2 it's spread out. We took a lot of that dialogue you had before at the camp and deliberately put more of it into their personal quests and the intermittent dialogues you have at the follower's base-- that's where you get to ask them their questions, as they come up in context.

My impression is that some people miss being able to get all the dialogue at once. I think there's an urge to get an immediate response for interaction-- click-reward-click-reward, etc. --until they feel they've gotten to know the character and then move onto the rest of the game, even if there's not a lot of dialogue after that point outside of triggered moments.

Maybe that's better, I don't know. It's simply an interesting perception, but whether it's caused by some people simply missing dialogue or because the first act is so long and there's only one major dialogue for a follower there after you recruit them... or something else, I can't really say. I imagine it varies, and the fact that someone feels less connected certainly speaks for itself, but it's not from lack of dialogue. Not everyone feels the same way, of course, but we'll definitely look at the various reactions and tweak it some more. There are indeed some things we tried in DA2 that I don't think we'll try again, but I'm still willing to give it some time to mull over.

I'd like to call bull$#!+ on the portion I have in bold. Considering I am still playing Origins on the PC for my Rogue play through - the BOLD portion above that I pointed out is COMPLETE BS.

First, I am trying to romance Leliana. Every time I go to camp, I can't just unlock her dialogue. I have to physically move her approval rating up with gifts. It's not like these NPCs are sitting there - waiting to talk to you - to unlock all their dialogue. I have slowly moved her rating up with choices I have made in the game, and gifts I find along the way to unlock more and more of her dialogue. So it's not click, reward, click, reward, click reward.

And some - like Sten - won't even talk to me. Despite my best efforts to befriend him (admittedly I have not given him any gifts, because they all go towards Leliana pretty much). And Alistair won't share everything - no matter how much I talk to him. And some events, like going to Redcliff unlock more dialogue (depending on how you talk to him about what he reveals).

His entire statement above REEKS of the fact it sounds like he's trying to cover up the fact that Dragon Age II is botched.

[AndreaDraco]

So none of the issues concern DA2 itself? Like if I chose to romance Isabela, it wouldn't suddenly decide later that I romanced Merrill instead ? If I do a "good deed" does the game think I did a "bad deed" later?

So far, every decision I made in DA2 has been correctly recognized both by the companions and the NPCs around Kirkwall.

Maia, on the other hand, might have a real issue with this, especially the problem with Anders since he's a potential romance in DA2.

News of the hour!

I won't put the news under spoiler tags because it's really important. It seems that, even if the console doesn't correctly recognize the plot flags from your import save, the game does. In fact, Anders recalled perfectly what happened to him during my Awakening playthrough and many users reported that Zevran/Lelian will aknowledge their relationship with the Warden, if they were fully romanced. Alistair seems to be more problematic, though, due to the sheer number of possibilities in his romance (married to him, his mistress if he married Anora, still partner with him if he wasn't king and remained a Warden and so on).

@ Tawmis. I dearly miss the camp and I don't know: it's so difficult to actually have a camp and make the companions slowly reveal themselves throughout the game, maybe with some new info coming up after you complete some relevant quest? However, I'm glad the gift system was changed for DA2, because it was really horrible in DA:O, in my opinion. Giving plot-related gifts to the companions (like the Antivan Boots and the Dalish Gloves to Zevran, the grimoire and the mirror to Morrigan or his mother's amulet to Alistair) was great, but the generic gifts... I don't know. It felt like I was pandering to their whims, showering them with gifts and buying their approval, and that's why - aside from the plot-related ones - I never use gifts in my playthroughs. In DA2 there are only companion-specific gifts and it works much better in my opinion.

[Tawmis]

@ Tawmis. I dearly miss the camp and I don't know: it's so difficult to actually have a camp and make the companions slowly reveal themselves throughout the game, maybe with some new info coming up after you complete some relevant quest? However, I'm glad the gift system was changed for DA2, because it was really horrible in DA:O, in my opinion. Giving plot-related gifts to the companions (like the Antivan Boots and the Dalish Gloves to Zevran, the grimoire and the mirror to Morrigan or his mother's amulet to Alistair) was great, but the generic gifts... I don't know. It felt like I was pandering to their whims, showering them with gifts and buying their approval, and that's why - aside from the plot-related ones - I never use gifts in my playthroughs. In DA2 there are only companion-specific gifts and it works much better in my opinion.

I am more than fine with companion only gifts. (In hindsight, I gave Alistar's locket to Leliana in this play through because I already got everything there is out of Alistar, other than romancing him as a female, which I plan to eventually do as well.

[Maiandra]

Speaking of dialogue, if you're a female and involved with Alistair, Wynne says some hilarious things to him.

Back to DA2...

I've been looking at the rogue talents to get an idea of what to take. When a talent description says it require a certain amount of points as a prerequisite, what exactly does that mean?

For example, Twin Fangs says "requires 4 points in Dual Weapon". Does this mean I would need to have 4 other Dual Weapon talents to take it? Or can it count as the 4th? Or does it mean something else?