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Disco Infiva posted:I can't remember right now, but why wasn't Arl Eamon at Ostagar? Coincidence? Cailan responded with "Eamon just wants in on the glory" and then proceeds to pout that they've won several skirmishes already and that he's worried that this isn't a blight and that he isn't going to get his glorious battle. Also at some point between Duncan's last visit to Redcliff and him arriving at Ostagar, Eamon was poisoned by idiot extraordinaire Jowan on orders from Loghain. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 09:49 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 09:46
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pentyne posted:Cailan is a manchild who's father was a notorious poonhound and would rather have a grand adventure then rule, and passed said cavalier attitude onto his son. Anora also more or less ran the kingdom for Cailan, and would rather rule in her name then from the shadows including allowing her father to die, so I don't know where you're getting "daddy's girl" from. Which actually implies that it might be Cailan who couldn't have kids rather an Anora, as his father clearly wasn't the most virile. There should have been many more bastard brothers running around than there were if he was fully functional.
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May 29, 2014 10:58
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Disco Infiva posted:I can't remember right now, but why wasn't Arl Eamon at Ostagar? Coincidence? He was poisoned but I took it as eamon was a very honorable guy not someone who was out to take power.
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May 29, 2014 11:44
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But wasn't Eamon poisoned after Ostagar? Jowan escaped during the mage origin, and while all origins happened before Ostagar (obviously), I don't think that Loghain has enough time to capture/find him and use him to poison somebody while he's leading an army at Ostagar because Cailan was trying to be a heroic dumbass. Anyway, thanks for the responses guys, even though I was asking jokingly..or was I? 
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May 29, 2014 12:22
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I think that Eamon, Cailan, Anora, and Loghain are all varying degrees of untrustworthy and treacherous. Eamon seems rock solid because during the story, he knows you need him and his army, and your plot-critical companion thinks he can do no wrong.
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May 29, 2014 14:17
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Disco Infiva posted:But wasn't Eamon poisoned after Ostagar? Jowan escaped during the mage origin, and while all origins happened before Ostagar (obviously), I don't think that Loghain has enough time to capture/find him and use him to poison somebody while he's leading an army at Ostagar because Cailan was trying to be a heroic dumbass. Time's a bit nebulous, but yeah, that would be the most likely scenario. By the time you get to Redcliffe they note the undead have only been skulking about a few days, and the undead showed up like immediately after Eamon got poisoned. Come to think of it, every major hub in the game is like "this JUST happened" the moment you get to site. Werewolves had just attached the Dalish, Circle had just revolted, the dwarven king had just died.
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May 29, 2014 14:22
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Strenuous Manflurry posted:Time's a bit nebulous, but yeah, that would be the most likely scenario. By the time you get to Redcliffe they note the undead have only been skulking about a few days, and the undead showed up like immediately after Eamon got poisoned. And yet Wynne can tell you that it's been "almost a year" since your origin after a few conversations. Origin's timing is all kinds of screwed up. Don't bother trying to make sense of it. Just assume that everything happened in about a year, give or take. Trying to figure out anything more specific is futile.
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May 29, 2014 14:33
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Geostomp posted:And yet Wynne can tell you that it's been "almost a year" since your origin after a few conversations. Origin's timing is all kinds of screwed up. Don't bother trying to make sense of it. To be fair, you apparently weren't supposed to exhaust the dialogue trees in one session but over multiple trips to camp, which in turn would be between the various hubs which would each imply a large amount of travel time in between them. Of course, that indicates that Bioware has no understanding of how the average RPG player would approach their conversation system. Did they actually expect, when presented a list of conversation avenues, that players would simply pick one and then leave for the next destination?
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May 30, 2014 02:48
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Eamon isn't really a bad guy. If you decide to not be chancellor, he takes up the position and is noted as being a very good leader. Then he abdicates his claim to the Arling of Redcliffe to his brother Teagen, because the common people remember when Teagen took up arms and protected everyone, and he was quite happy to do so at that. If you kill Conner, it's even noted that he has a daughter who turns out to also be magic, but that he 'uses his connection to visit very often, and makes sure she knows she's loved, regardless'. Eamon's a pretty cool dude in a land of fantasy racists and poo poo.
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May 30, 2014 03:00
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Renditious posted:To be fair, you apparently weren't supposed to exhaust the dialogue trees in one session but over multiple trips to camp, which in turn would be between the various hubs which would each imply a large amount of travel time in between them. That was a huge problem with DA:O's conversation and affection system. There were tangible gameplay benefits for having your party like you, meaning that conversations could be "optimized." And if you give a typical RPG player a system that can be optimized they will optimize it and never explore any other options because doing so makes you objectively weaker.
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May 30, 2014 03:08
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Fojar38 posted:That was a huge problem with DA:O's conversation and affection system. There were tangible gameplay benefits for having your party like you, meaning that conversations could be "optimized." And if you give a typical RPG player a system that can be optimized they will optimize it and never explore any other options because doing so makes you objectively weaker. It's even easier to do so nowadays, since the approval change for every single dialogue option in the game is on the wikia.
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May 30, 2014 11:42
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Fojar38 posted:That was a huge problem with DA:O's conversation and affection system. There were tangible gameplay benefits for having your party like you, meaning that conversations could be "optimized." And if you give a typical RPG player a system that can be optimized they will optimize it and never explore any other options because doing so makes you objectively weaker. Well, they're doing it wrong. RPGs are all about the feels, man. The feels.
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May 30, 2014 16:17
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It's kind of annoying that there's so much that games can't do because everything must be balanced around people going beep boop max grognard efficiency.
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May 30, 2014 16:31
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Strategic Tea posted:It's kind of annoying that there's so much that games can't do because everything must be balanced around people going beep boop max grognard efficiency. It's not that you can't do it. It's like anything, if the incentives actually work to stop you doing it, no-one ever will. Build a bad system, it won't work in desirable ways. DA2 was a step in the right direction, but it could easily be improved further.
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May 30, 2014 16:33
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CottonWolf posted:It's not that you can't do it. It's like anything, if the incentives actually work to stop you doing it, no-one ever will. Build a bad system, it won't work in desirable ways. DA2 was a step in the right direction, but it could easily be improved further. DA2's problem was that it put your personal opinion of the character on the same scale as whether or not you agreed with them politically. It's been a while since I played, but if you were nice to Merrill about things in general but disagreed with her about her interest in the occult (which is a perfectly legitimate set of positions to take), you'd find yourself hovering around the middle of the approval bar. There should be a different set of consequences for doing that.
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May 30, 2014 17:14
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Strategic Tea posted:It's kind of annoying that there's so much that games can't do because everything must be balanced around people going beep boop max grognard efficiency. It'd be so much easier if the developers just gave you some better pacing for the companion quests or at least removed the little slider under them. Strangely, Mass Effect actually does do its party's development better since you don't have to go out of your way to keep everyone happy or consistently antagonize them in just the right way for the proper bonuses. Less pressure to build "relationships" with your crew actually adds more incentive to do so at your own pace. CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:Well, they're doing it wrong. RPGs are all about the feels, man. The feels. That is incentive for some, but just getting to those scenes requires you to build up support by picking the proper responses a quickly as possible or suffering for it. If you don't make everyone like you and continuously rotate out your party combinations at basically random intervals to do so, you can easily be blindsided when you get to scenes where the party member can betray you without warning like Zevran. If they were paced better, it wouldn't be such an issue. Pattonesque posted:DA2's problem was that it put your personal opinion of the character on the same scale as whether or not you agreed with them politically. It's been a while since I played, but if you were nice to Merrill about things in general but disagreed with her about her interest in the occult (which is a perfectly legitimate set of positions to take), you'd find yourself hovering around the middle of the approval bar. There should be a different set of consequences for doing that. That bugged me too. Either you agreed with whatever extreme political view your group of jerks spewed, or you had to agree with the exact opposite. No inbetween or separating the components of the issue or admitting that your party had a point, but was too extreme. Either you were with them or against them, just like everyone else in Crazytown. They need to add in a general Influence stat and reduce friend/rival to plain flavor. That way you could stay someone they respected without having to go out of your way to consistently agree or disagree with every little thing. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 17:19 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 17:15
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Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only person in existence who actually really enjoyed both Dragon Age games and am still looking forward to the third.
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May 30, 2014 17:39
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Captain Mog posted:Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only person in existence who actually really enjoyed both Dragon Age games and am still looking forward to the third. Well you might be the only one in the thread cause most goons hated 2  I think I finally ended at the position that while it's not terrible (I gave it two playthroughs and had an... okay time) it's definitely unfinished and ridiculously pretentious. It does a lot of goofy poo poo while trying to take itself seriously and that just creates mood whiplash. Also it was overhyped but that's the fault of PR people, not game designers.
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May 30, 2014 17:44
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I either said this before or read it before but Dragon Age 2 is the worst game you'll ever bother to finish
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May 30, 2014 17:46
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Shugojin posted:Well you might be the only one in the thread cause most goons hated 2 Maybe it's just me, but I thought both were fairly well-done and "fun" (for lack of a better word). Not perfect by any means, but I enjoyed the story, the combat, the characters, and the choice dynamic almost across the board in both games. Of course, there were flaws: namely, DA:2 felt extremely confined and the dungeons were horrid, but I liked the rest of the game enough to make up for it. DA:O was a bit logically spotty in certain areas (I have no clue how the hell Ferelden even functioned before the MC & Alistair came along to save the day) and the combat was too hectic at times, but again, I liked the rest of the game decent enough for the flaws to escape my notice. Is it the best fantasy RPG series ever made? Nah, especially when compared to TES which is like the LOTR of gaming. Is it a good fantasy RPG series? Definitely. And DA:3 will be a day one purchase for me not even gonna lie.
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May 30, 2014 17:50
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How do you play a game where these is no choice and/or rewards? Act like a game where these systems are in place, and be pleasantly surprised either way when things happen because of things you did. You can sperg out on later playthtoughs. Just enjoy yourself the first time through. "Gimping" yourself is something only bad players do, and you're a good player, aren't you?
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May 30, 2014 17:52
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epitasis posted:I either said this before or read it before but Dragon Age 2 is the worst game you'll ever bother to finish That's a good way to put it. haha.
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May 30, 2014 17:52
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epitasis posted:I either said this before or read it before but Dragon Age 2 is the worst game you'll ever bother to finish As someone who finished the game, I think this is a fair assessment.
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May 30, 2014 18:08
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Captain Mog posted:Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only person in existence who actually really enjoyed both Dragon Age games and am still looking forward to the third. I enjoyed both. My wife loved both to the point that she pre-ordered the Inquisitor's Edition.
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May 30, 2014 18:14
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Both games are good. DA1 is a decent fantasy romp. DA2 is a great piece of schlock just ripe for picking apart.
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May 30, 2014 18:18
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I finished Origins twice because I had a good time. I tried out DA2 up until act 2 but it didn't pull me in enough to buy it. Inquisition looks like it will be cool though, so I'm looking forward to it. Maybe not a preorder, but if this thread says it's good then I might grab it soon after release day.
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May 30, 2014 19:21
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I finished Origins and have other playthroughs I want to complete so I can get some variations of endings; it's pretty much one of my favorite games. DA2 is weird because from afar, I like most of the characters (except what they did to Anders and Justice), but I could not for the life of me actually want to play it once I tried it out. After watching my friend play Mark of the Assassin, it pretty much turned me off to the game. The only thing I can say is that at least I got DA2 cheap in a bundle with the Ultimate Edition of Origins.
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May 31, 2014 07:21
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epitasis posted:I either said this before or read it before but Dragon Age 2 is the worst game you'll ever bother to finish I personally lost interest after the Qunari section of the game and never finished it, but yeah that sounds about right. It does (or in my case almost does) juuuust enough with the combat and plot to keep it going. The writing and characters were enough to put me off of it in the end, though. I know it's been said a million times but it's almost impressive how thoroughly lovely a collection of party members they made. Never before has a game had such an unflinchingly terrible group of characters that you're supposed to like. edit: Varric is kinda okay and I actually liked Aveline, though 
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May 31, 2014 07:34
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Captain Mog posted:Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only person in existence who actually really enjoyed both Dragon Age games and am still looking forward to the third. It's definitely not just you. There's just a very vocal group of goons who think DA2 is literally Satan and shout down any attempt to discuss the game rationally, which leads to most people except me and Pick from not even bothering to engage with the topic. Most forums other than this one aren't nearly as down on 2.
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May 31, 2014 07:38
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Captain Oblivious posted:It's definitely not just you. There's just a very vocal group of goons who think DA2 is literally Satan and shout down any attempt to discuss the game rationally, which leads to most people except me and Pick from not even bothering to engage with the topic. More like there's a small very vocal group that despite the bland gameplay, awful characters and non-existent story somehow absolutely adore the game.
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May 31, 2014 08:09
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Captain Mog posted:Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm the only person in existence who actually really enjoyed both Dragon Age games and am still looking forward to the third. Since so much time in both games is spent in combat, the better combat of DA2 means it's not nearly as bad as the detractors make it out to be. Both games were fun to play through, don't let others scare you off. I'm looking forward to Inquisition as well, it seems quite promising from what we learned till now.
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May 31, 2014 08:13
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Torrannor posted:Since so much time in both games is spent in combat, the better combat of DA2 means it's not nearly as bad as the detractors make it out to be. Both games were fun to play through, don't let others scare you off. I'm looking forward to Inquisition as well, it seems quite promising from what we learned till now. The combat in DA2 is only better until you start to notice how boring the encounter and enemy design are, though. The combat, while mechanically fine, ended up being a tedious slog every single time because they didn't do anything interesting with it and padded it out with seemingly endless waves of magically-appearing trash enemies.
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May 31, 2014 08:27
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Xoidanor posted:More like there's a small very vocal group that despite the bland gameplay, awful characters and non-existent story somehow absolutely adore the game. I thought having a story centred around a single family during an extended period of time was a pretty cool concept, at least it wasn't 'Save the wooooooorld' again. It just completely fell apart by act 3 and that ending was stupid for so many reasons. Also, yes, the encounters were pretty terrible even if the systems themselves were a step up from Origins.
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May 31, 2014 08:45
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Tirranek posted:I thought having a story centred around a single family during an extended period of time was a pretty cool concept, at least it wasn't 'Save the wooooooorld' again. It just completely fell apart by act 3 and that ending was stupid for so many reasons. Also, yes, the encounters were pretty terrible even if the systems themselves were a step up from Origins. Yeah, I think part of the reason that people are so vocal about DA2 (myself included, apparently) is that there was clearly potential there. Much more disappointing that way.
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May 31, 2014 08:52
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Just because I hated DA2, both because I found it fundamentally flawed and lacking content on Steam PC, doesn't mean I still don't want Inquisition to actually try and surprise me by being good. However, I want more evidence from Bioware that its actually trying to better itself with this game. Joking about what I didn't like and talking about how it can further incorporate history, the best writer, into their world is the only thing I can do while waiting for E3 or more info other than Yes, I can pre-order this game. I mean this little tid-bit about Breaches is interesting because right now its just pure lore. The idea that the Veil is everywhere and a breach can occur anywhere is compelling, but I'd like to know how this takes effect in game. What would larger breaches look like outside outside of there being way too many demons around? Can the terrain, flora and fauna be altered by the Fade? Will sealing them away just be an uneventful boss fight and a wave of my green glowy hand or will they be a little more varied? I've been disappointed by Elder Scrolls games not living up to their lore before, but I just want some effort on their part.
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May 31, 2014 09:01
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Xoidanor posted:More like there's a small very vocal group that despite the bland gameplay, awful characters and non-existent story somehow absolutely adore the game. This is the mindset of the detractors, it really pisses me off. Thinking the game was enjoyable = adores the game. The game had it's flaws, quite many even, and it definitely went downhill in the third act. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. And if the gameplay of DA2 was bland, what about the much more boring combat in Origins? Besides, nobody in their right mind would call the Arishok, Aveline or Varric "awful characters".
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May 31, 2014 09:04
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Torrannor posted:This is the mindset of the detractors, it really pisses me off. Thinking the game was enjoyable = adores the game. The game had it's flaws, quite many even, and it definitely went downhill in the third act. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. And if the gameplay of DA2 was bland, what about the much more boring combat in Origins? Besides, nobody in their right mind would call the Arishok, Aveline or Varric "awful characters". I bet those are the only three examples of decent characters you can give, though. Maybe you could make an argument for the drunkard uncle too. As for DAO's combat, it had actual depth to it, was used well (more often than not, anyway), and also got some bonus points among fans for being kind of like the Infinity Engine games. DA2's combat was mechanically sound but got put to incredibly tedious use.
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May 31, 2014 09:08
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Walrus Pete posted:As for DAO's combat, it had actual depth to it
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May 31, 2014 09:16
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Raygereio posted:I'm curious: what sort of depth was there to DA:O's combat mechanics? Threat/aggro management mattered, crowd control was very important, and using debuffs on strong enemies actually made a noticeable difference. Off the top of my head.
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May 31, 2014 09:17
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Walrus Pete posted:DA2's combat was mechanically sound but got put to incredibly tedious use. My favorite part was the console release where they just forgot to include auto-attack so every fight was essentially a far more tedious, rigid version of Dynasty Warriors.
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