Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 3 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Dez
As someone who does not have any form of nostalgic value in DA:O and installed/started playing it less than a week ago (thanks again, Abits!) - the graphics are fine, really. I was pleasantly surprised.

The combat however... Oh god, I am not sure whenever I just suck at it in general or if it is my severe distaste for real-time action in solo-player games showing but MAN... I played on the normal/standard difficulty, and I died so many times just trying to clear out the 3 bandit camps that I nearly lost it. ; _ ; And I don't even wanna talk about how long it took me to survive the night outside the haunted kid's castle. , _ ,

The entire thing about pausing live-action and being able to select ONE ability at the time when paused is driving me insane. I am at a point where I have to quick-save after pretty much every single encounter or dialog. XD (but that is not entirely due to difficulty, I am also having weird crashes, probably due to the game's age)

And regarding the camera management... Please no , _ , The scrolled-in option is making me motion sick and the scrolled-out option is clunky when out of combat. I personally absolutely adore the turn-based combat and camera angle in Xcom, DOS2 and BG3. Turnbased combat has really turned out to be something I am much better at than live-action . _ . I couldn't even finish The Witcher, Mirror's Edge or FF XV because I just can't handle the live action combat - I absolutely hate it. >.< So I ended up just watching the entire stories on YouTube instead.



That sounds frustrating. Have you considered playing on easy? There's no shame in it.

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
Originally Posted by zeel

Part of it being the first actual RPG I ever played, and I think i was just at the right age when playing it to be like really affected by the storytelling. Also, despite the fact that the later games ruined most of it, I really like the setting and general lore that DA:O sets up! I know calling it my favorite game is... controversial, especially in these nerdy RPG spaces lol. But I just like it a lot!

Welp. Lol I guess this proves my point in a way, since I never even noticed the ceiling I don't really find it important.


I'm in the same camp as you with DAO being one of my favorite games of all time. But I enjoyed it for the story, for the companions, and for origins, not for combat. Combat was super tedious unless you were playing a mage and at least had cool spells at your disposal. But I also really loved DA2, which I know is rare, and absolutely hated Inquisition, which is also rare heh.

I think the good thing DAO and all dragon age games did was the over-the-shoulder camera. BG3 camera feels very restricting when you are trying to zoom into your character and the cut off from the sky makes me dizzy. I tend to want to push further to see whats there in the sky. It might not be a tactical gimmick but more the feeling of the option given which only goes half-way. If the option to view the characters from the back is there, then why not go all the way and add WASD controls and a full camera view.


Last edited by Arideya; 04/11/20 05:12 PM.

"There are three things that are strength incarnate: there is love of life, there is fear of death, and there is family. A family that loves death would have a strong pull indeed." - Tamoko
Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Yess, WASD + full camera third person mode would be very nice.

Joined: May 2019
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: May 2019
Originally Posted by Arideya
Originally Posted by zeel

Part of it being the first actual RPG I ever played, and I think i was just at the right age when playing it to be like really affected by the storytelling. Also, despite the fact that the later games ruined most of it, I really like the setting and general lore that DA:O sets up! I know calling it my favorite game is... controversial, especially in these nerdy RPG spaces lol. But I just like it a lot!

Welp. Lol I guess this proves my point in a way, since I never even noticed the ceiling I don't really find it important.


I'm in the same camp as you with DAO being one of my favorite games of all time. But I enjoyed it for the story, for the companions, and for origins, not for combat. Combat was super tedious unless you were playing a mage and at least had cool spells at your disposal. But I also really loved DA2, which I know is rare, and absolutely hated Inquisition, which is also rare heh.

I think the good thing DAO and all dragon age games did was the over-the-shoulder camera. BG3 camera feels very restricting when you are trying to zoom into your character and the cut off from the sky makes me dizzy. I tend to want to push further to see whats there in the sky. It might not be a tactical gimmick but more the feeling of the option given which only goes half-way. If the option to view the characters from the back is there, then why not go all the way and add WASD controls and a full camera view.

Agree with you both about DA:O. Love that game, and do not at all agree it was shallow in any way. Very interesting story, very interesting characters. I am very strongly in favor of classes and hate classless systems, so the game being weak on classes was my only complaint. However, I disagree on combat. I found DA:O combat to be the perfect iteration of RTwP combat, and thoroughly enjoyed how it worked in that game. Very engaging, dynamic, and easy to handle. Also, I did enjoy DA2 as well, but also DA:I, so the DA franchise now is my favorite overall franchise for modern, party-based cRPGs.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Yeah DA:O story and combat were both really engaging to me.

Joined: Oct 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
I love DA:O too, but I actually liked the characters and character stories in Dragon Age II a little more.

For me there is a happy medium between complete sandbox/faceless protag games like Elder Scrolls and completely linear fixed actor narratives such as Final Fantasy, that the better Bioware games typically hit for me. And especially because of the time frame Dragon Age II takes place over, I really like the way they could let characters develop over a long period of time.

Joined: Oct 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
As for combat in any RPG and D&D in particular, the D&D rule set is not very engaging, 5e classes are built to have 2 or 3 tricks with most mobs designed to work around them.
Combat in Dragon Age: Origins was the best of that series but combat became little more than a weird combo system, with little choice on your end as to how you 'solve the puzzle' of an encounter.

So far in the BG:3 EA, I'm pretty satisfied by the combat so far, with the caveat that from first level to fourth you haven't really hit the levels in D&D that turn your characters into superhuman death dealers. There's a reason E6 Rules where a thing.

Joined: May 2019
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: May 2019
Originally Posted by Sozz
I love DA:O too, but I actually liked the characters and character stories in Dragon Age II a little more.

Yeah I have always been very puzzled with many people's reaction to DA2. I found it to be a really good game. I completely agree about how irritating it was to have the level designs being constantly reused. But we also know why that happened, because EA forced Bioware to rush the game out the door. But other than that issue, the game was very good.

Joined: Oct 2020
R
old hand
Offline
old hand
R
Joined: Oct 2020
The biggest problem I had always DAO is how it becomes very easy to play after a few hours, regardless of the level of difficulty.

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
Originally Posted by kanisatha

Agree with you both about DA:O. Love that game, and do not at all agree it was shallow in any way. Very interesting story, very interesting characters. I am very strongly in favor of classes and hate classless systems, so the game being weak on classes was my only complaint. However, I disagree on combat. I found DA:O combat to be the perfect iteration of RTwP combat, and thoroughly enjoyed how it worked in that game. Very engaging, dynamic, and easy to handle. Also, I did enjoy DA2 as well, but also DA:I, so the DA franchise now is my favorite overall franchise for modern, party-based cRPGs.


I think DAO combat was just a little too slow for my tastes, DA2 of course went the other way and made everyone a squirrel on caffeine, DAI was a happy medium between the first two games, but for me they cut out so many skills and spells that already after the 1/3 of the game I felt like I stopped progressing, I've never finished the game. But overall I agree that their RTwP implementation was good, and I do generally like it more as long is it doesn't fall into press X and stuff go boom category.

Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Sozz
I love DA:O too, but I actually liked the characters and character stories in Dragon Age II a little more.

Yeah I have always been very puzzled with many people's reaction to DA2. I found it to be a really good game. I completely agree about how irritating it was to have the level designs being constantly reused. But we also know why that happened, because EA forced Bioware to rush the game out the door. But other than that issue, the game was very good.


Same actually. I loved DA2 cast. I also loved the fact that it stepped away from the typical Bioware power fantasy and gave us a protagonist that basically failed at everything, and yet they still managed to keep the story engaging. The conversations might have been sillier and shorter than Planescape Torment, but it got a lot of undeserved hate in my opinion.


Last edited by Arideya; 04/11/20 06:41 PM.

"There are three things that are strength incarnate: there is love of life, there is fear of death, and there is family. A family that loves death would have a strong pull indeed." - Tamoko
Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Slow is just how I like it.

Joined: Jan 2018
W
veteran
Offline
veteran
W
Joined: Jan 2018
There is a lot I actually liked about DA2 over Origins. I think the story, setting, and characters are all more interesting. It also had a distinct visual identity, so aesthetically was more enjoyable for me than the first game.

Even the shift from a RTwP tactical RPG to an RTwP action / tactical hybrid RPG was okay with me. DAO was tactically not a very sophisticated game, so there wasn’t much lost.

My biggest problem was how terrible the fights are. Every single fight happens in waves. Every. Single. One. Except a few like dueling the Qunari leader, of course. But you can never just fight a group of thugs in an alleyway. You fight them and their ten buddies who were just hanging out on the nearby rooftops AND their ten friends who also hang out on rooftops but arrive late to parties. It is ridiculously gamey, really breaks my immersion, and makes fighting feel like a chore. It’s the only reason I couldn’t play that game more than once.

Joined: Jul 2019
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Jul 2019
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Arideya
Originally Posted by zeel

Part of it being the first actual RPG I ever played, and I think i was just at the right age when playing it to be like really affected by the storytelling. Also, despite the fact that the later games ruined most of it, I really like the setting and general lore that DA:O sets up! I know calling it my favorite game is... controversial, especially in these nerdy RPG spaces lol. But I just like it a lot!

Welp. Lol I guess this proves my point in a way, since I never even noticed the ceiling I don't really find it important.


I'm in the same camp as you with DAO being one of my favorite games of all time. But I enjoyed it for the story, for the companions, and for origins, not for combat. Combat was super tedious unless you were playing a mage and at least had cool spells at your disposal. But I also really loved DA2, which I know is rare, and absolutely hated Inquisition, which is also rare heh.

I think the good thing DAO and all dragon age games did was the over-the-shoulder camera. BG3 camera feels very restricting when you are trying to zoom into your character and the cut off from the sky makes me dizzy. I tend to want to push further to see whats there in the sky. It might not be a tactical gimmick but more the feeling of the option given which only goes half-way. If the option to view the characters from the back is there, then why not go all the way and add WASD controls and a full camera view.

Agree with you both about DA:O. Love that game, and do not at all agree it was shallow in any way. Very interesting story, very interesting characters. I am very strongly in favor of classes and hate classless systems, so the game being weak on classes was my only complaint. However, I disagree on combat. I found DA:O combat to be the perfect iteration of RTwP combat, and thoroughly enjoyed how it worked in that game. Very engaging, dynamic, and easy to handle. Also, I did enjoy DA2 as well, but also DA:I, so the DA franchise now is my favorite overall franchise for modern, party-based cRPGs.

The class system wasn't bad, you could pick a class and 2 subclasses, there were tons of customization there. The only thing it lacked were multiclasses.

Also liked the fact that you had to complete quests to unlock the subclasses.

Last edited by Danielbda; 04/11/20 08:43 PM.
Joined: Nov 2020
Location: void
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2020
Location: void
Running same locations again and again doesn't help either. And spikes, spikes everyfookinwhere, Kirkwall was gobbo wet dream.

Joined: May 2019
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: May 2019
Originally Posted by Warlocke
My biggest problem was how terrible the fights are. Every single fight happens in waves. Every. Single. One. Except a few like dueling the Qunari leader, of course. But you can never just fight a group of thugs in an alleyway. You fight them and their ten buddies who were just hanging out on the nearby rooftops AND their ten friends who also hang out on rooftops but arrive late to parties. It is ridiculously gamey, really breaks my immersion, and makes fighting feel like a chore. It’s the only reason I couldn’t play that game more than once.

Okay I can grant that combat encounter design having some issues versus the combat system being bad. Combat system was awesome for me. But yeah the waves of enemies got really old pretty quickly.
Originally Posted by Danielbda
The class system wasn't bad, you could pick a class and 2 subclasses, there were tons of customization there. The only thing it lacked were multiclasses.

Also liked the fact that you had to complete quests to unlock the subclasses.

Okay, sure. I liked the subclasses and their attached quests too. I just wish they had a slightly greater variety of classes (nowhere near as many as D&D or even PoE) but more importantly more exclusive distinction among the classes, so you can't just load up a character with abilities from every other class.
Originally Posted by Verte
Running same locations again and again doesn't help either.

Yeah this is what I meant by saying repeat use of level designs.

Joined: Mar 2020
apprentice
OP Offline
apprentice
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by Danielbda
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Arideya
Originally Posted by zeel

Part of it being the first actual RPG I ever played, and I think i was just at the right age when playing it to be like really affected by the storytelling. Also, despite the fact that the later games ruined most of it, I really like the setting and general lore that DA:O sets up! I know calling it my favorite game is... controversial, especially in these nerdy RPG spaces lol. But I just like it a lot!

Welp. Lol I guess this proves my point in a way, since I never even noticed the ceiling I don't really find it important.


I'm in the same camp as you with DAO being one of my favorite games of all time. But I enjoyed it for the story, for the companions, and for origins, not for combat. Combat was super tedious unless you were playing a mage and at least had cool spells at your disposal. But I also really loved DA2, which I know is rare, and absolutely hated Inquisition, which is also rare heh.

I think the good thing DAO and all dragon age games did was the over-the-shoulder camera. BG3 camera feels very restricting when you are trying to zoom into your character and the cut off from the sky makes me dizzy. I tend to want to push further to see whats there in the sky. It might not be a tactical gimmick but more the feeling of the option given which only goes half-way. If the option to view the characters from the back is there, then why not go all the way and add WASD controls and a full camera view.

Agree with you both about DA:O. Love that game, and do not at all agree it was shallow in any way. Very interesting story, very interesting characters. I am very strongly in favor of classes and hate classless systems, so the game being weak on classes was my only complaint. However, I disagree on combat. I found DA:O combat to be the perfect iteration of RTwP combat, and thoroughly enjoyed how it worked in that game. Very engaging, dynamic, and easy to handle. Also, I did enjoy DA2 as well, but also DA:I, so the DA franchise now is my favorite overall franchise for modern, party-based cRPGs.

The class system wasn't bad, you could pick a class and 2 subclasses, there were tons of customization there. The only thing it lacked were multiclasses.




There are faster combat MOD to install to make it more fast paced. And there are item mods and class mods to enhance the game quite a bit and give it more flavor. The story is kind of a cliche tho, and would not make it by todays standards.

Ill go on a limb and say that BG3 combat is also kind of tedious. There is always a best move per turn, and it seems to always (for my mage) to be Hex - scorching ray. So i would say that there is more or equal to do in combat any given time in DAO given the real time combat.

Last edited by DurneFea; 04/11/20 08:57 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by DurneFea

Ill go on a limb and say that BG3 combat is also kind of tedious. There is always a best move per turn, and it seems to always (for my mage) to be Hex - scorching ray. So i would say that there is more or equal to do in combat any given time in DAO given the real time combat.


I was worried that's how BG3's combat would end up, but so far I've been balancing using my mages between crowd control and damage which is what I would expect at this level, with the other classes it runs into the same problems that are inherent in 5e
Originally Posted by Sozz
As for combat in any RPG and D&D in particular, the D&D rule set is not very engaging, 5e classes are built to have 2 or 3 tricks with most mobs designed to work around them...with little choice on your end as to how you 'solve the puzzle' of an encounter...


But I'm really not comparing BG3 to the Dragon Age series but with BG:2 (and DOS a little), I liked the combat in Shadows of Amn but it had two kinds of encounters, the first, your enemy has a gimmick that you can either counter or not, or the late game which is all the wizards spamming protections and debuffs while the grunts deal with mobs until the war of attrition allows them to attack the boss. I think that's fun but there's a big gap between the two that I think the combat in BG3 and DOS cater to.

Last edited by Sozz; 04/11/20 09:25 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
R
old hand
Offline
old hand
R
Joined: Oct 2020
The problem for me with DA2 is how much hp the mobs have in relation to the damage the team is doing.
The fights aren't even tough, I'd say most of the deaths in DA2 were caused by friendly fire.

Joined: Jan 2018
W
veteran
Offline
veteran
W
Joined: Jan 2018
Originally Posted by Rhobar121
The problem for me with DA2 is how much hp the mobs have in relation to the damage the team is doing.
The fights aren't even tough, I'd say most of the deaths in DA2 were caused by friendly fire.


I think that along with the waves mechanic was honestly just an attempt to pad out the game time. DAO is a loooong game. DA2 is less so, which is understandable considering the truncated production. DA2 was only about 70 hours for me as opposed to the well over 100 hours for a DAO playthrough, but I would have been more than okay with a 40 to 50 hour game with better designed encounters. I imagine BioWare / EA thought many of their fans might feel cheated, though.

Last edited by Warlocke; 04/11/20 09:56 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Warlocke
Originally Posted by Rhobar121
The problem for me with DA2 is how much hp the mobs have in relation to the damage the team is doing.
The fights aren't even tough, I'd say most of the deaths in DA2 were caused by friendly fire.


I think that along with the waves mechanic was honestly just an attempt to pad out the game time. DAO is a loooong game. DA2 is less so, which is understandable considering the truncated production. DA2 was only about 70 hours for me as opposed to the well over 100 hours for a DAO playthrough, but I would have been more than okay with a 40 to 50 hour game with better designed encounters. I imagine BioWare / EA thought many of their fans might feel cheated, though.


This I think speaks a lot to the MMO-ification of CRPGs these days, just inflate your characters stats and then make the mob's hp goes up to match it, while the mechanics never really change. This was all I could think about with DA:Inquisition which was just "watching cooldowns the game".

DA:2 clearly was rushed out the door, (in traditional black isle fashion) but they still prioritized the story which is also what I prioritize in these games so I wasn't too bothered by lack luster combat or the reused dungeon assets.

Last edited by Sozz; 04/11/20 10:17 PM.
Page 3 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  Dom_Larian, Freddo, vometia 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5