Discuss Dragon Age 2

Well I just finished the game this afternoon and have to say I rather enjoyed it, flaws and all. Let me address these quotes first.....

AlexRD said:

Later, the changes will feel natural, and you will prefer it, and you won't be able to play without those changes, such as faster combat, jump to action combat, etc.

The game has its flaws though. They dumbed it down a little for console kiddies, that's true. For instance, the injuries now only reduce health, instead of reducing constitution, or magic, etc. You can't customize your companions armors, only for Hawke. And it kind of lost that customization feel of the character.

Like Origins, many scenarios are overused, and i personally think they did it more with Dragon Age 2. The caves are like ALL THE SAME! You enter it, and you think it's a different cave but after a while you notice they used the same cave.

I've heard the complaints about the combat system being dumbed down, and have made mention myself, but I also feel that this was for the better as the combat system in DA:O wasn't exactly easy and intuitive itself. To I think the system is easier to use and a lot less awkward, especially the tactics system. The game flowed a lot better with this one as opposed to DA:O's stop every 5 seconds to adjust stuff. If that's dumbing down the game, well....

Honestly I don't know I feel about the loss of not being able to customize your companions gear. Hmmmm.... they did the same thing in Mass Effect 2 with regards to customizing things. I guess this is the new cheaper way to do things and cut corners.

As far as some of the areas being the same, yeah that did get boring after a while.

Skulblaka said:

Gornot said:

As far as reappearing characters from DA:O, Isabella was the only PLEASANT surprise.
Yes, Isabella appeared in DA:O; if you can remember, she was the one who teaches the Duelist specialization to rogues :)

Hm, I actually never met her in Dragon Age 2, must've missed her somehow. I was quite satisfied with Merrill.

I'm hoping that's a misprint as I can't see how you missed here in DA2. She plays a major part of the game.

boogieboy said:

Also the good think in DA2 is that all races now looks different from each other like Elves have different body structure, Qunari's are different etc. :)

I thought the Elves looked horrendous. The artist there must have some type of fantasy about long pointy ears. Really???

Though I don't agree with everything here Discuss Dragon Age 2 there are some good points in it nonetheless.

Anyway I thought the game was rather good overall.

Performance wise the game ran great UNTIL after the Qunari war. After that I had strange slowdowns and a couple of hard lock ups. I found installing the 11.4 Catalyst Preview drivers fixed whatever issue I was having. I ran the game on ultra-high with the texture pack.

The sound issues are a mess, especially when the characters were speaking - they sounded like they were in a cave. Also the sound of the voices tended to fluctuate between high and low - at times you could barely hear them speak.

I also thought the game was a bit too loud. The sound effects were nice during combat but the loud explosions tended to be a bit much.

Graphics - I really didn't have too much of an issue here considering the game's environment but I do have the say the colors and detail were rather nice with the texture pack added. Unfortunately you needed to run the game on "Ultra High" with a DX11 capable card to enjoy those eye popping graphics.

Gameplay - Overall I did find that the game was easier the beat then DA:O - the only two areas I struggled in was the Bone Pit with the High Dragon - I leveled up one, came back and beat it with ease. The final fight - had to replay the entire level to get the companion I needed to win.

Speaking of "required companions" - I kind of felt like I had to keep a certain companion or life would be very difficult in the end game.

At any rate the bottom line for me is that I enjoyed the game and am definitely looking forward to Dragon Age 3. I'll also be playing the game over from a certain point to change some of my less than steller decisions just to see the different outcomes. Good game nonetheless :)

Questions/Debates?

BTW I played as a Rogue, same as I did in DA:O

Thanks.

vierasniper said:

The big changes that bother me include : not picking a race, the spells and skills, and the over all feel of the interface and my surroundings and interactions. is it me or did blood Mage loose some of its edge? im finding it a bit weird. also, what team set up's do you guys have? mines blood Mage (me) fenris (tank) anders (healer and support) and im switching on and off between Isabella and Sebastian as a rouge.

I think Mage is much much better actually. The AE thing not hitting your teamates is alone a huge advatage. Makes Mage life far better. I had Aveline tank, me mage dps, then Switch Fenris/Sebastian, Anders for most of my mage time. I never used Merril or Isabella unless I absolutely had to for their companion quests.

Then on my Warrior which i just finished tonight I used Fenris, Me wardps, Merril, then Isabella/Sebastian most of the time I ran with no healer and just used tons of pots and poisons was interesting.

On my warrior I mainly used Varric Anders and Bethany, then Isabela after Bethany leaves. Varric is like, mandatory to have at all times if you're not a rogue, he's just too good.