Dragon Age 2 - Here be spoilers.

[koro]

Well friendly fire was kind of a huge nuisance in DA the First; you're so frequently pitted against a large horde of mobs to the point that not lobbing that massive fuck-off fireball that nearly one-shots Alistair is more of a detriment than a tactical asset, crispy Templar be damned.

I'd rather see something like 25-50% friendly fire depending on difficulty, with 100% at max.

[jakonovski]

Playability wise that's true, but balance wise even full FF wasn't enough to prevent mages from being totally OP and breaking the game in DA:O. Bioware's decision bodes ill in context.

[koro]

I maintain that it was less Mages being overpowered and more Warriors and Rogues being underpowered. Mages had a huge robust arsenal of tricks that they could pull from a couple dozen times over the span of a battle. Warriors and Rogues had little more than a few extra flavors of "hit foozle with sharp object, sometimes with a bonus status effect attached" to augment their auto-attacking. With Mages seemingly toned down a bit and the other two archetypes given more interesting and effective tools, I think things may be a bit more reasonable this time around.

[Zetor]

Mages had a few 'friendly-fire-friendly' AOE spells in DA1. Sleep/mass-paralysis are two that come to mind... iirc they had a pretty huge AOE as well.

[Sjofn]

Well, given EVERYONE has crazy AE bullshit to friendly fire with now (2h warriors even do it passively, from what I could tell), I can see how it would make it a lot harder than they want "hard" to be. I still would rather it was at least at 50% on "hard" but whatever, I'll just play on nightmare. 

[Koyasha]

In the end, it really doesn't matter to me since it's unlikely I'm going to play on anything less than Nightmare difficulty.

But it seems like this would be something that'd best be handled with a separate setting.  You want to play on normal difficulty with full friendly fire, you can set it that way, or set it with no friendly fire on any difficulty, and so on.

As for whether one class is more powerful than all the others; it doesn't matter.  This is a single player game, balance is irrelevant.  As long as all classes are capable of getting through the game, and as long as each class is fun to play in its own particular way, it doesn't matter if one of them can take on ten times as many enemies at once.  Mages should be vastly more powerful than warriors and rogues - it makes sense that way.  But warriors and rogues need to be fun to play in their own 'style' - this was somewhat lacking.  They could be fun to play, but I think there were a few mistakes that made them considerably less fun than they could have been.

[Sophismata]

This is a single player game, balance is irrelevant.
[...]
Mages should be vastly more powerful than warriors and rogues

Holy fuck how I hate hearing that. Balance is never irrelevant. And it's not just about combat viability, either - it's about presentation and making the player feel special. You don't fucking give her a choice between three (apparently) equal career paths, and then dick her over once she realises she's been had because you really liked mages and didn't much care to make warriors or rogues even remotely as powerful or interesting.

A player doesn't choose Warrior or Rogue because they want to be a dirt-scrubbing sidekick to the two NPC wizards in the party, they choose it because they enjoy the archetype, story or gameplay associated with that career. Just because you can finish the game using a strategy, class or tactic doesn't give that item a pass as a good development choice.

Then, to add insult to injury, the most efficient form of 'mundane' gameplay involves not even using active warrior talents - it's using passives, stances and auto-attacks to 'face-roll' through all encounters.


Edit: In a single player game, you can ignore specific builds and attributes being overpowered to a fair extent, because it rarely hinders anyone's enjoyment of the game. But when 2/3 of your classes suck, and suck in an appreciable way that the gameplay constantly enforces, there's a balance problem. 90% of DA's combat caters directly to the wizard archetype, presenting hordes of lesser foes that swarm the PC's and render Warriors and Rogues largely ineffective. This might be fine if the game didn't trick the player into believing she's choosing one of three equally viable careers.

[Tebonas]

Which could then be the class for people who WANT to use passives to face-roll through all encounters, and thus valid. As long as there are other classes/builds for a more proactive playstyle available.

[Sophismata]

Which could then be the class for people who WANT to use passives to face-roll through all encounters, and thus valid. As long as there are other classes/builds for a more proactive playstyle available.

The game is based around tactical combat, your decisions, positioning and timing are supposed to mean something to the fight. This is only true if you're a mage, or a Warrior with taunt being supported by a mage. In the end, there is one class / build for a more proactive playstyle, and that is mage. And the problems with the mage cascade into other areas. The game is harder for non-wizards, because of DA's combat design. Hell, the designers know this because they give you a mage if you don't have one for the early orc hunt in the tower.

This sounds a lot like raging, and it is. Stupid imbalance is a pet peeve of mine. For the record, I rolled a mage in DA, but I remember a lot of pissed off people who weren't expecting how trashy the warrior/rogue was in comparison. It's not just DA you see this in, though - D&D (and many other, lesser known RPG's) has the same problem, wizards are Just Better. Which can be logically correct, but there is no excuse for it in a game.

[Paelos]

Did anybody else have a lot of loading right in the middle of the action?

[Tebonas]

And still people were fine and played the whole game using Mages just as Healers or the occassional "Oh shit, this fight is hard" panic button.

Yes, Paelos. Three or four times during dialogues.

[deb]

The game is harder for non-wizards, because of DA's combat design.

The game is really harder only if you don't have a mage in the party. A minmaxed rogue can do ridiculous single-target damage while at the same time the mage(s) the party make it rain. And moving behind enemies and pressing one button sure isn't hard. Boring, but not hard.

[Koyasha]

Well as I pointed out in my post, warriors and rogues were somewhat lacking in the 'fun to play in their own style' part.  Not that they needed a truly huge amount of work, but they needed some additional work.  They were perfectly capable of completing the game on the hardest difficulty setting with no mages in the party, by the way.  I did a full nightmare run with a no-magic party and I was even able to defeat Ser Cauthrien's little trap.  With good tactics.  So non-mages aren't so completely incapable of using tactics.

I haven't played the DA2 demo yet and don't plan to for several more days (I'm actually gonna do another runthrough of Dragon Age and Awakening, just to get a 'final' setup with everything the way I want it) but I hope that they have managed to improve rogue and warrior gameplay and fun, while still keeping mages vastly more powerful.  I would hate to see mages brought down to warrior and rogue levels, (or vice versa) making a mockery of the entire 'mages are scary badass motherfuckers' concept.

[Mosesandstick]

I did a full nightmare run with a no-magic party and I was even able to defeat Ser Cauthrien's little trap. 

Ooh, explain please.

[Koyasha]

I don't remember the exact details, but I used numerous traps, poisons, and archery.  Archery in particular was useful for various stunning and snaring effects.  My own warrior was an archer character in that playthrough, and I had Leliana mostly archer.  I believe I also had Alistair and Zevran with me at the time.  A lot of 'run away!' using the entire hallway and rooms all the way back to the Arl's bedroom was also involved, and I know it took me numerous reloads to succeed, but I managed to do it eventually.  The mage(s) she had with her needed to die fast, and Arrows of Slaying took care of them pretty effectively, if I remember right.  After that it was just a matter of not getting murdered by her or the army of archers, and picking them off.  Most of the archers wouldn't follow you out of the room they start in, so it tended to be relatively easy to separate Cauthrien from them.  Run her through a gauntlet of traps, I think, before getting Alistair to tank her while everyone unloads, was the way I finished her off.  I think.  There may also have been some ping-ponging her between Leliana and my Warden.

The worst part of that fight was the cutscene right before it, leaving everyone horribly positioned.  If I had been able to leave various party members strategically positioned down the hall, and send only one character forward, it would have been much easier.

[Sjofn]

I agree that the non-mage classes can lack the "pop" of mages in DA:O, but I found mages utterly boring, so it didn't particularly bug me. Really the biggest issue with the not-mages was their absolutely shitty stamina system, especially without stamina potions. I could do one whole special and then autoattack forevaaaaar with my poor 2h warrior during the low levels. What I don't agree with is that the lack of fun/oomph/power/whatever was OK because it was a single player game. I don't expect perfect balance in a single player game (OK, in any game), but I also think it's a big mistake to have classes be obviously lacking compared to another. All it does is piss off the people who picked the "wrong" class.

Soooooo it's probably no surprise that I also feel wanting them to keep mages vastly more powerful than anyone else is just ... shitty. Even putting aside the gameplay thing, mages are scary badass motherfuckers only partly because they can be powerful. The REAL reason they're scary motherfuckers is because they can be possessed by demons and then REALLY fuck shit up. Hell, the shittier the mage, the scarier they are in that regard, because they're more likely to be possessed.

[tmp]

I withhold comments on character creation until I see it in complete form together with inventory management. Right now I smell dumbed downness as well.

Character creation is pretty much the same it was in DAO i think, they didn't make any comments about changes to that part. That's as far as visuals of the character go at least.

Also, the demo supposedly has pretty broken dx11 renderer which gives it a woeful performance, it's better to stick with the dx9 one for the time being. Since all the attack animations are xtreme now, the game really suffers when it doesn't render things at enough fps.

[jakonovski]

Did anybody else have a lot of loading right in the middle of the action?

Yeah, it was really annoying. Technically the pc demo is a bit of a mess.

[Mosesandstick]

That sounds a bit convoluted Koyasha. Were the traps laid before the fight (i.e. on the way in)?

I thought the character models looked pretty good and realistic. Who decided to give Flemeth a make-over?

[jakonovski]

Who decided to give Flemeth a make-over?

Considering she can turn into a dragon, a makeover should be quite a bit easier.

[Paelos]

Did anybody else have a lot of loading right in the middle of the action?

Yeah, it was really annoying. Technically the pc demo is a bit of a mess.

For running on a high end machine, I wasn't really impressed by the fact the game would literally HALT as I'm fighting, I'd get "Loading..." in the bottom right of my shitty UI, and then it would go to some random cutscene.

I will not be purchasing at release. I fear with the loading, the UI, and the ridiculous over the top animations that they may not have focused enough on the gameplay of the actual game.

[Morfiend]

Did anybody else have a lot of loading right in the middle of the action?

Yeah, it was really annoying. Technically the pc demo is a bit of a mess.

For running on a high end machine, I wasn't really impressed by the fact the game would literally HALT as I'm fighting, I'd get "Loading..." in the bottom right of my shitty UI, and then it would go to some random cutscene.

I will not be purchasing at release. I fear with the loading, the UI, and the ridiculous over the top animations that they may not have focused enough on the gameplay of the actual game.

Thats odd. I didnt have any of that. I have a pretty new PC, i7 950. At one point it hung for like 1.5 seconds during combat then went in to a cutscene. Other than that it played flawlessly.

[tmp]

The loading stutter is supposedly not present in the final version. Don't know why they'd let it in the demo given it's first impressions et al, but welp.

[Lantyssa]

A melee Rogue was much more fun to play, though I wish I didn't feel like I needed to pause to keep switching targets.  It broke up the fluidity they gave the Rogue.

I also appreciate the inclusion of the smart-ass dialog option.  Though it may be a bad thing if as I may have difficulty selecting anything else.

[Shrike]

Played the 360 demo last night. More fun than I thought it'd be. It had unfortunate loading breaks as well, though very short ones--for a console. Overall, I liked it quite a bit. I was going to put this one off for a Steam sale at a (much) later date, but with WoW in a tailspin right now and me bored silly, I may pick this up on release for the 360 (new soundsystem for the TV...gotta have something new!).

And, yeah, the smartass dialog options are going to be VERY hard to resist.

[Hawkbit]

The loading stutter is supposedly not present in the final version. Don't know why they'd let it in the demo given it's first impressions et al, but welp.

Sounds vaguely like MMO miracle patch talk.

[tmp]

I also appreciate the inclusion of the smart-ass dialog option.  Though it may be a bad thing if as I may have difficulty selecting anything else.

Some of the dialogue is of the o.O variety. Like the "I'm sorry Aveline i can't make that call for you" thing. Well duh Mary Marian Sue, no one asked you for that in the first place. But then the other options are even worse

[Merusk]

In the original DA I'd say only warriors were screwed on the "Not fun to play" part.  I played a melee rogue for one main and she was a lot of fun.  I'm in to the whole positioning and knowing when to blow your skill combos thing, though.   It wasn't as faceroll as a mage, but it also wasn't "stand here and get beat on until pommel strike/ deathblow/ mighty blow/ shield slam comes up" like the warrior.

The demo truly feels like DA still, and that's both good and bad.  I like that they started shifting to an overall style instead of generic_fantasy_with_gore, BUT the animations and models still suck compared to ME2.  The faces still look like ventriloquist mannequins when talking or trying to form an expression (seriously, watch their eyebrows) and I saw quite a few clipping errors in the cutscenes.   Flemeth's redesign was pretty damn cool, and I hope if there's a DA3 they do it again, showing more depth as she chooses what form to use based on how she's manipulating people.

I like the little preview of your future badassery at the beginning.  Unfortunately, it still felt like mage was going to be much more fun than melee once leveled up.  Maybe it's just that the warrior warden champion had an awful skill selection because they only wanted to let you see 2-3 trees for each class in the demo. I don't know.

On the other hand, mages are punished by getting saddled with their useless dick of a brother instead of the sister, so perhaps that's punishment enough.  (At least that's my impression of him thus far.)    I did get a little bit of a "they're trying too hard to make her Morrigan" vibe off her few lines of dialect with the Templar. Maybe it's just early and that'll change.

The dialog icons are pretty nifty.  Peacemaker, Sarcastic and Authoritarian.  Lacking the paragon/ renegade aspect like ME2 lets you play a little more natural character with a personality of your choosing instead of trying to min/ max some arbitrary stat.  Lets you be that smart ass without going "oh hell, I'm wishy-washy" (Like Lant, I had difficulty picking anything other than that a number of times.  Well, except for when everyone wanted to stand around talking while we were running for our lives.)

- Paelos, I didn't have that loading issue anyplace but the cut scenes.  Seems odd as my machine is almost 6 years old now and only a dual-core 2.56mhz machine w/ 2gb of RAM.

[Paelos]

- Paelos, I didn't have that loading issue anyplace but the cut scenes.  Seems odd as my machine is almost 6 years old now and only a dual-core 2.56mhz machine w/ 2gb of RAM.

I had it turned up to the max to test it, so that may be part of it. Still, my machine is a year old and I upgraded my RAM two months ago.

[jakonovski]

I have a 3.2GHz Phenom II quad core, 4 gigs of ram and a 1Gb HD4890. The demo wouldn't let me go Dx11 mode so I was stuck on medium with capped fps of 60. I got the cutscene stutters and load text real bad.

 

[Segoris]

Weird, I have an intel e8400, ati 4870 and 4g ram and I didn't think they were that bad at all. Lasted normally less than 2 seconds and I only had it happen maybe 5-7 times. I had turned on dx11 so I could put it on the second to highest gfx which is listed as the dx10 option (yeah, that bugged me since I have to turn on dx11 to get dx10 options...wth). I didn't check my fps because I had no stuttering or slow down issues.
Edit: Loading only on cut scenes, not during combat.

[Merusk]

Maybe it's a DX10 problem, then.  My computer & vid card can only do DX9.

[Segoris]

I think it's more a person's PC. I should have mentioned this, and will edit my post to include it, but my loading issues were only before cut scenes

[Ingmar]

I read somewhere that friendly fire will be nightmare only. Because it made the game "too hard".  

Does it matter? I mean if you want it to be hard, put it on nightmare, right?

On the demo, I had exactly one technical hiccup, when I alt-tabbed, no loading during combat or any of that stuff.

[koro]

I don't think it's unreasonable to want at least some friendly fire on a difficulty that isn't "the absolute maximum."

Of course, the obvious solution would be a simple "Friendly Fire" check-box (or pull-down menu with multiple FF options) in the gameplay options menu, which means it'll never be done.