Dragon Age

[dstarsboy]

To be fair, though, they are still supporting Liara's romance. They just didn't introduce any new ones.

Oh, awesome! Sorry to jump the gun.

[Riviera]

To be fair, though, they are still supporting Liara's romance. They just didn't introduce any new ones.

Oh, awesome! Sorry to jump the gun.

Don't worry, you're not the only one saying this. I was very disappointed that there was no female romance for Jack or Tali. That could have ended very sweetly. Especially Tali.

But, you know, someone will probably find a way to mod all of this in, eventually.

[sayuri]

So, for those of you who have played the demo a couple times, what was your favorite class? Do you know what you are going to be in your first playthrough? Lastly, just what did you think of the demo in general? Personally I really like the new dialogue wheel. And I'm a newb but I hope that I can select choices with the direction buttons and not analog stick. Once or twice I hit the wrong choice, OTL. I'm definitely going to play as a rogue first because... well... rogues are amazing. But what do you think?

[Aleema]

I'm conflicted between mage and archer rogue. x_x I've always wanted to play a mage but I just can't playthrough DA one more time, the game is too long. x_x So playing it in the demo was a LOT of fun. However, my favorite has always been the archer and the archer kicks ass this time around!! So I dunno. x_x

Here's my review that I posted to my forum:

Very promising. My biggest gripe about it was the prettiness of the user interface, so that's not a big gripe. xD But to me, I hate ugly GUI, and this one looks like it was supposed to be the placeholder, but here it is, in the game ... lookin' blah. Battle is also VERY fast. Way faster than DA:O, so I had to pause sometimes just to get my bearings. Rouges are like fucking chimpanzees flying around the battlefield, but I don't think I like it. I played as a mage for the first time in my DA history and loved it. I don't think I can go back to playing Warrior/Rogue. Fire is just so much more fun. NOT looking forward to those gay mage robes though ... or those hats.

Edit: Just played through as Rogue. I love, love Rogue Archer. it's SUCH an improvement over DA:O version. Faster ... just plain COOLER. So basically, all my complaints totally work for the archer, because they were a cumbersome slowbee before. And I played archer a lot. ;_;

I really liked the dialogue portions of the game, and they were very truthful when they said that you could influence the tone of your character. Unfortunately, the tones are very different (so while you're deciding, your Hawke will sound bipolar), and it seems to just go off of the last tone you chose, so I wasn't able to choose a sarcastic tone just one in a while without my entire tone shifting to snarky bitch, which made me never choose anything sarcastic again. But on the bright side, if you do stay true to a tone, you characters will actually feel like different characters. So it's a way to encourage the replayability and customization that was lost by going to voiced MC.

Story wise, the demo was mostly just a grindfest through darkspawn. Just darkspawndarkspawndarkspawn. From what I can tell, it starts off at the very beginning of the game, BUT after the first "chapter" or whatever, it jumps ahead in time to Isabella's recruitment quest.

Because it didn't just stop after the first chapter, I can NOT recommend it to the purists. While one recruitable gets a full introduction, they skip over 2 other character introductions SHOWING YOU the most interesting parts of their introduction just to get them in your party. I would have rather'd they just magically appeared in your party but nooo, spoil it for me. I didn't even realize we'd jumped ahead in time and I was like "hey, wait!? why was his intro so short!??!?". Soooo, yeah.

But I did shed some tears at the end of chap. 1. Probably because it hit home, so don't expect similar results.

I did like the "framed narrative" aspect of telling the story. I really felt like Varric was telling it.

Looks good, but I really, really, really, really hope the game is more polished. The GUI sucks ass with amateur glows on everything and just black screens, AND it felt like a port. Playing on the PC, I found it hard just to click things. I couldn't even select a huge f'ing button because the hotspot was a ten by ten pixel square in the corner. wtf. If finished game is as glitchy as that, then PC gamers should just bury their computers because PC gaming is dead.

[Riviera]

I kind of felt the same way. I loved my mage's blursty goodness, but the roge was interesting, too. The demo felt very console-oriented, but still worked decently for my PC, which was great.

May I say that female Hawke's voice is amazing? Because it is.

[dstarsboy]

Not sure if someone mentioned this already...

I played through the original DA on hard as a Warrior (easy peazy) and as a Ranger (a littl more difficult but not bad). But then I tried to burn through as a mage... wow... death fest... for me. I swear, I would fight a peasant on the street or something and they would kick my arse. I dropped it to medium.. same deal... dropped it to easy... pretty much the same deal. I was done with a mage at that point. I heard later, they came out with super easy mode because people were complaining.

I hope they're all fairly balanced in DA2. Normal mode as a mage should be just as difficult as normal mode as a warrior. Did anyone notice an improvement here?

[Aleema]

That's funny, because for the first hour or so of DA:O I played a mage, but then I wanted to try out the other classes and I never went back to the mage, but here's what I found: I kicked way more ass as the mage than the rogue or warrior. In fact, my rogue/warrior builds were the death fest for me. I was like ... WHY is the pansy mage so much tougher than these other guys?

So it's probably just a player tactic problem. Maybe you were running up to enemies so they attacked you? Maybe I shouldn't have split the party as a rogue/warrior? It can be all kinds of player-induced problems, not just balance, since I actually found it to be the other way around, personally.

I have to say, from the demo, each class has their strengths and weaknesses. Fighting a single enemy with the mage took a long time, but they had AOE/Heal spells that helped the party, and it was just plain fun! Rogue could take down single enemies the fastest, and the warrior could take out multiple enemies at once, but more or less still the tank.

[sayuri]

Yeah, the classes were super unbalanced in Origins. Mages were definitely glass canons, but there were so many abilities that were just ridiculous. Absorbing mana and HP from fallen enemies, Crushing Prison was one, not to mention primal magic that just wiped out everything. As long as you had a tank or two that could distract enemies, you're good. To be honest, my only full playthrough was as a two-hander warrior. I mowed through darkspawn and rarely died, but against bosses my character didn't do so hot. I think choosing a mage is best for people who like to switch party members often, while a rogue or warrior is good for people who like to stick with their Warden.

That being said... I failed against the second Ogre in the demo as a mage. I was doing great until Carver died then I got swarmed by four darkspawn. I didn't even finish the demo as a warrior. It seemed kind of bland to me. Maybe it was because it felt a lot like a DA:O rogue to me, which is what I usually play as, so I didn't really feel like it.

[Riviera]

Ah, see, when I fought the second ogre as my mage, I made sure to keep freezing him while basically machinegunning potions at the rest of the group.

I had to drag Connor away from the fight once or he would have died, yes. ~_~

[Chansel]

Mages were glass cannons? And weak? Did we play the same game O.o
Mages were hugely op! Sure, they would die when directly attacked by 5 darkspan. But so would my rouges. That's where alistair or shale were for
If you had even a semi-decent tank, than mages were really REALLY overpowered.

Thar being said, it seems like the classes are more balanced this time around. Though they may have gone a tad overboard with archers this time. But we'll just have to wait and see if the final game uses the same build. I kinda hope it does. Super strong archers for the win!

The second ogre went down relatively easy for me. In my first playthrough, which was a mage, I just kept running around and casting fireball whenever I could. The thing was too slow to catch me

[Aleema]

Did you play the demo, Chansel? DID YOU PLAY THE DEMO? I AM DISAPPOINT.

Archers are overpowered? Hmmm. I felt they were always underpowered, so I loved that they did stuff this time around. Didn't think that maybe they're overpowered. Basically what was described in the interviews was that rogues were great at taking down single enemies. If you look at the animations, the two-handed rogue fights MUCH faster than the rogue who has to shoot a bow. I think because of animation's sake, each bow hit does more damage than a single blade hit. I could be wrong, though.

I think one of the better things about DA2 is that you CAN outrun enemies. Originally, I would move out the way of the orge's rock throwing in DA:O, but no matter what it would always hit me. Same for every spell and arrow. o_O

[Chansel]

Yes, I know. I’m weak.
I did hold out untill yesterday, however. So I’m not utterly weak. Just, you know, normal weak ^^”

About archers, I don’t think they’re totally, omg, super-duper OP. They’re simply very strong. There’s a difference
I disagree that they were underpowered in DA:O though. With the right build, all the shots they made were critical hits. So that’s pretty good in my book. Their abilities, however, weren’t really good. The casting time was just way to long. So it was better for them to just dish out critical hits all the time. Then we got Awekenings and Bioware tried to make the archers’ abilities better. But they went kinda overboard and suddenly archers were Tha Bomb!
So I’m glad it appears archers are balanced now. They’re still strong, but I agree with you that that’s probably because they’re animation is longer than that of duel wielders. Soo, it’s all good.
I’m probably going to play one in my first game. Because I love rouges, but I don’t like to jump around the field like a ninja in this setting ^^” Besides, I really enjoyed playing an archer in the demo. Though I must say that mages seem waaay to awesome to pass up on. So In all honesty, I’m still torn between playing an archer or a mage for my first play through. For party balance sake though, I’m thinking mage. But I just love rouges so much... So I really don’t know >.<” Too many cool options!

I think one of the better things about DA2 is that you CAN outrun enemies. Originally, I would move out the way of the orge's rock throwing in DA:O, but no matter what it would always hit me. Same for every spell and arrow. o_O

Agreed. I felt like a real jester while I was outrunning the ogre. I could just imagine my Hawke shouting things like “Hah, miss me! I’m over here now.” “Ooh, you almost got me this time. NOT!” and stuff like that XD
I think that in DA:O, you couldn’t move out of harms way because every ability targeted an enemy. Or, in the enemies abilities case, targeted you or one of your allies. While in DA2, all AoE abilities target, well, an area So step out of that area and you’re in the clear.
I really love this system. Now we can outrun attacks! AND we need to plan ahead with our own AoE. Because in the beginning Bethany kept shooting her fireball BEHIND the darkspawn >.> It took me a while to figure out she was targeting the ground instead of the actual spawn.

[papillon]

... whereas I found that in the da2 demo attempts to run away from trouble just meant that enemies would shoot me from behind rocks while completely off the screen, meaning I couldn't target them, but they could target me.

I did not have a good time with the demo.

[sayuri]

I totally agree with you about Flemeth. It would have made total sense if

it was her new vessel

but since that isn't true... yeah it felt totally out of character. As for the demo referring to Hawke as The Champion, it makes sense. Through the game he/she will be referred to as Hawke because they are not a Champion yet. Since Champion is a title, you wouldn't call Hawke just Hawke. That would be like... if someone were recalling Alistair's story after he is king, they would refer to him as King Alistair, even though at the time he was just Alistair. I'm curious though, why did you find character skills more complicated? For DA:O I just picked whatever skill sounded good. I suppose the additional options is a bit overwhelming. And, I have to admit, a lot of the skill descriptions confused me . But overall I really enjoyed the new combat system. What class were you playing as?

[papillon]

Is it a real title in the setting that has been applied to multiple people in the past? If so I guess it makes more sense, it just seemed like it was being said like you'd say "The Hero". I haven't paid enough attention to the plot details to grok the whole background there - but that's the thing, in the first game there was so much introduction to the concept of wardens that using the name as a job title felt natural.

This "champion" stuff sounded like it was going to be either a made-up-on-the-spot honorary title granted by the rulers of wherever to Hawke for accomplishing some great deed, or just the term that people had made up to refer to a self-made warlord who had no official title. Neither of which would perfectly match Cassandra's insistence on referring to the character by title and title alone (it's not so much saying King Alistair as saying *The King* at all times). I dunno, it just felt odd. That's a very minor quirk and may go away as I get the hang of what the plot is doing.

I'm curious though, why did you find character skills more complicated?

Because when I went to the skills screen there was this big collection of trees and icons, and I had to click on each individual tree to see the things within it, and then back out again, so it was more difficult to get an overall picture of the options available to me. Bioware had done a big interview about how they were trying to avoid challenging new players with "confusing stats and decisions" and had made everything more streamlined, but being unable to get a clear overview of my options and easily compare one thing to another made it harder to make choices.

I don't hate the new combat system (I was a daggers-rogue) but I didn't find it a huge improvement either, and the demo still had far too much fighting in it. Also somewhat dismayed by the nerf to the heal spell!