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 by F8L Fool, Level 14
Last updated at November 7, 2009, 11:32 pm
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Just incase you forgot already, BioWare were the geniuses behind Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and the Baldur's Gate series among others (Mass Effect, anyone?).
If you take nothing else away from this blog, or simply stop reading here, remember this: Get this game on PC!
DA:O was in my top ten most anticipated games of the year and tied for first in terms of Q4 releases, right along with CoD: MW2. I am a console loyalist at heart and only purchase games on the PC that I strongly feel have an edge. Going off of past experiences with BioWare multi-platform games alone, I felt strongly that their 360 port would be satisfactory, and I was very mistaken.
The game feels like a PC game that was dumb downed for a console. The interface was literally ravaged and stripped down to bare bones. It is functional, but it's not very fluent or convenient by any means. The targeting system also suffers because of this.
There's so much to address in this game that it's a bit overwhelming. So I'll just touch on a few key points, and save the rest for a later blog:
Combat: This is a mixed bag for me. It's my favorite feature, and somehow my second biggest gripe. Certain aspects of it I find very intuitive and enjoyable. Like the recent console RPG releases Infinite Undiscovery and Magnacarta 2 you are fighting in real time, in a semi-open world, with one to three other characters simultaneously. However unlike Infinite Undiscovery where you were forced to control only one character directly throughout the entire story, in DA:O you can toggle across to every character to control them manually as you see fit.
+The Good+:
+ Superb "tactics" system which allows you to fully customize how any and all of your party members fight while controlled by AI. It functions extremely well and allows you to have a lot of control of how everyone behaves from scenario to scenario. You want a character to use X ability when Y target is stunned? You can set that in tactics. You want your character to drain life when they hit 50% HP? You can set that in tactics. You want them to go taunt the monster that attacks your healer? Yep, you guessed it, customizable in tactics. My personal favorite is setting a player to automatically pot (and which pot you want them to use) when they reach a certain amount of mana and/or health.
+ Superb "tactics" system which allows you to fully customize how any and all of your party members fight while controlled by AI. It functions extremely well and allows you to have a lot of control of how everyone behaves from scenario to scenario. You want a character to use X ability when Y target is stunned? You can set that in tactics. You want your character to drain life when they hit 50% HP? You can set that in tactics. You want them to go taunt the monster that attacks your healer? Yep, you guessed it, customizable in tactics. My personal favorite is setting a player to automatically pot (and which pot you want them to use) when they reach a certain amount of mana and/or health.
+ Challenging fights that force you to use strategy and utilize all of your abilities. If you play on Nightmare mode like I did get used to lots of saving because dying is commonplace.
+ Unique spell/ability interactions. Certain spells have their effects amplified, or unique results when used in combination with other attacks. Example: If you freeze a target then have your rogue, that if specced right gets guaranteed crits on frozen/stunned targets, the target has a chance to "shatter" and be instantly killed.
-The Bad-
- Melee can be quirky and unpredictable at times. Sometimes wide arching attacks hit nearby opponents, sometimes they don't. If a target is running away when you do a melee attack it often doesn't land. On the flipside the enemy has the weird ability to swing and hit you from absurdly far away (even though the animation clearly shows you avoided a blow).
- Any movement whatsoever cancels your spells and auto-attack. This can be extremely frustrating and can cause serious loss of DPS. If you move one foot to the left to backstab, your character shouldn't just sit there like an idiot staring fondly at the enemy he was just demolishing.
- Some spells say friendly fire possible, but do nothing. Others absolutely rock your entire party. Inferno vs. Earthquake, or Cone of Cold vs. Shock. Earthquake knocks enemies and friendlies down, but inferno does nothing at all. Cone freezes everyone, but shock does nothing. This is most noteworthy on lower difficulty settings where your characters take no actual damage, but still have other after effects.
Dialogue: You can sum up this games dialogue in one word: abundant. Every creature and character you interact with has its own voice acting, and I do mean every single last one. Not only that, but the VA is exceptionally well acted, consistent, and immersive. Literally hours of dialogue is packed into this game. It's also quite refreshing that BioWare took the high road and didn't go into crazy accents and tones for each race. Star Wars and LoTR has enough of that as is.
Character Customization & Development: This is my absolute biggest pet-peeve in the entire game!!!!! The game is capped at 25 levels. After each level you are able to distribute three attribute points across stats like strength, dexterity, etc. and one talent point into an ability of your choosing. Each ability has pre-requisites like a certain amount of one stat and/or level.
This is all fine and dandy, but there are some unique problems as well because of this. The talents are set in tiers or four. Generally speaking you'd think the fourth tiered skill would be the best, but that isn't always the case. I find that the first and second tiered skills are usually the most powerful.
Not only that, but the descriptions of the skills are so damn vague and inaccurate that you don't know the full function of it until you use it in battle. This wouldn't be so bad if you could reset your damn talent trees in any way, regardless of difficulty or cost.
In the end you find yourself either with a bunch of useless stuff (I started out with 2H weapons, and swapped to dual-wield leaving me with four wasted damn points in 2H), or you have to stick with what you started out with originally in order to make use of those talents.
+The Good+
+ Unique spell/ability interactions. Certain spells have their effects amplified, or unique results when used in combination with other attacks. Example: If you freeze a target then have your rogue, that if specced right gets guaranteed crits on frozen/stunned targets, the target has a chance to "shatter" and be instantly killed.
-The Bad-
- Melee can be quirky and unpredictable at times. Sometimes wide arching attacks hit nearby opponents, sometimes they don't. If a target is running away when you do a melee attack it often doesn't land. On the flipside the enemy has the weird ability to swing and hit you from absurdly far away (even though the animation clearly shows you avoided a blow).
- Any movement whatsoever cancels your spells and auto-attack. This can be extremely frustrating and can cause serious loss of DPS. If you move one foot to the left to backstab, your character shouldn't just sit there like an idiot staring fondly at the enemy he was just demolishing.
- Some spells say friendly fire possible, but do nothing. Others absolutely rock your entire party. Inferno vs. Earthquake, or Cone of Cold vs. Shock. Earthquake knocks enemies and friendlies down, but inferno does nothing at all. Cone freezes everyone, but shock does nothing. This is most noteworthy on lower difficulty settings where your characters take no actual damage, but still have other after effects.
Dialogue: You can sum up this games dialogue in one word: abundant. Every creature and character you interact with has its own voice acting, and I do mean every single last one. Not only that, but the VA is exceptionally well acted, consistent, and immersive. Literally hours of dialogue is packed into this game. It's also quite refreshing that BioWare took the high road and didn't go into crazy accents and tones for each race. Star Wars and LoTR has enough of that as is.
Character Customization & Development: This is my absolute biggest pet-peeve in the entire game!!!!! The game is capped at 25 levels. After each level you are able to distribute three attribute points across stats like strength, dexterity, etc. and one talent point into an ability of your choosing. Each ability has pre-requisites like a certain amount of one stat and/or level.
This is all fine and dandy, but there are some unique problems as well because of this. The talents are set in tiers or four. Generally speaking you'd think the fourth tiered skill would be the best, but that isn't always the case. I find that the first and second tiered skills are usually the most powerful.
Not only that, but the descriptions of the skills are so damn vague and inaccurate that you don't know the full function of it until you use it in battle. This wouldn't be so bad if you could reset your damn talent trees in any way, regardless of difficulty or cost.
In the end you find yourself either with a bunch of useless stuff (I started out with 2H weapons, and swapped to dual-wield leaving me with four wasted damn points in 2H), or you have to stick with what you started out with originally in order to make use of those talents.
+The Good+
+ Vast amounts of talents that will allow you to craft a character to suit your unique playstyle. The Rogue and Mage have vastly more talents than the Warrior but there's a lot of room for variation.
+ Solid character creation mechanics. The females features look much more polished than the males however, and they have many more options.
+ Imaginative popularity feature that allows you to gain favor with other characters in your party. This opens up new specializations for you and your party, as well as stat bonuses. The more you interact with a character the more you'll know what to say and what gifts they want. It's pretty cool.
-The Bad-
+ Solid character creation mechanics. The females features look much more polished than the males however, and they have many more options.
+ Imaginative popularity feature that allows you to gain favor with other characters in your party. This opens up new specializations for you and your party, as well as stat bonuses. The more you interact with a character the more you'll know what to say and what gifts they want. It's pretty cool.
-The Bad-
- NO WAY TO RESET TALENTS/SKILLS. Being stuck with a spell that is absolute trash, or an entire tree that you used at level 7 but not at 21 is unacceptable. Even if there was a huge fee or lengthy quest to reimburse SOME of your talents, that'd be ok.
- When you gain a new party member (character) their talents/attributes are already set. This means if you're level 16 when you get a new member the AI automatically distributed the points. So you could essentially be getting a carbon copy of your character or another party member, rather than being able to make them more unique to fill a new role.
- When you gain a new party member (character) their talents/attributes are already set. This means if you're level 16 when you get a new member the AI automatically distributed the points. So you could essentially be getting a carbon copy of your character or another party member, rather than being able to make them more unique to fill a new role.
- Most of the specialization trees are horrible. If you pay good money for a book or work hard to get a character to teach you a new spec, it should contain worthwhile skills. Berserker and Shapeshifter are two good examples of lackluster specs.
- Warriors and Rogues play far too much alike. There's not enough of a difference between the two to distinguish them apart. A Berserk Dual-Wielder plays just like an Assassin Dual-Wielder almost to the T.
- Warriors and Rogues play far too much alike. There's not enough of a difference between the two to distinguish them apart. A Berserk Dual-Wielder plays just like an Assassin Dual-Wielder almost to the T.
In closing: There's a ton of good things to say about Dragon Age: Origins. The good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's nice to see a refreshing, lengthy, challenging, and story driven RPG for a change. You definitely feel like you're on an epic journey in this game, and it's really fulfilling.
If you are curious about what system to get this game on, without question it's PC. It's very enjoyable and if you are a fan of story driven RPG's, or any past BioWare RPG's you won't be disappointed.
If you are curious about what system to get this game on, without question it's PC. It's very enjoyable and if you are a fan of story driven RPG's, or any past BioWare RPG's you won't be disappointed.
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Orion1234 Nov 9, 2009 at 9:01 pm
+1 votes
My personal complaint:
Mage class all of the good spells are ******* aoe AND HAVE ******* FRIENDLY FIRE.
This is so ******* annoying. Sitting spamming these ***** bolts when you've got HOLY **** ASPLOSION INFERNO this and BLIZZARD OF BLIZZARDY COLD that you cant even use because it'll kill your own team. (who often have less hp then the enemy mobs.)
I rerolled Ranger.
Mage class all of the good spells are ******* aoe AND HAVE ******* FRIENDLY FIRE.
This is so ******* annoying. Sitting spamming these ***** bolts when you've got HOLY **** ASPLOSION INFERNO this and BLIZZARD OF BLIZZARDY COLD that you cant even use because it'll kill your own team. (who often have less hp then the enemy mobs.)
I rerolled Ranger.
F8L Fool Nov 9, 2009 at 9:55 pm
+1 votes
On the flip side it's odd that archers have an ability that can hit for 500+ (Arrow of Slaying, that I've broken 900 damage with) every single time. Aside from that skill and Shatter Shot all the archer really does is auto-attack.
At least the Ranger spec is redeeming.
At least the Ranger spec is redeeming.
Orion1234 Nov 9, 2009 at 11:57 pm
+1 votes
500+? With what bow? I heard you get a really good one after doing the forest elf quests and killing some dragon. I'm having a really hard time ditching my tier 3 or 4 white, statless generic bow meanwhile my morrigan and alistar get sick tier 7 weps
My ranger is my highest save now and I think my whole group is 13-ish.
My ranger is my highest save now and I think my whole group is 13-ish.
F8L Fool Nov 10, 2009 at 12:21 am
+1 votes
Ranger was my third toon. I did Berserker, pure mage (didn't even use a single spec spell cause they're pointless), and then Ranger. The bulk of the damage from the archer class comes from Dexterity, not the damage on the bow itself.
I used a short bow (the level 1 one that you start with) to test the damage, and it did almost identical damage as my Leilana end quest bow which is the strongest in the game.
I used a short bow (the level 1 one that you start with) to test the damage, and it did almost identical damage as my Leilana end quest bow which is the strongest in the game.
abija Nov 11, 2009 at 8:16 am
+1 votes
So glad it's a pc game dumbed down on the console port and not another **** console game ported to pc. So sick of them ruining every tactic in rpgs because you can't make a proper ui for consoles for it.
The combat is designed for the top view baldur's gate style and it's great.
The spell system is one of the best I've seen in an rpg so far (many say mages are a lot more powerful than the other classes) and the combos are really sick, especially the non obvious ones.
If you qq about spells having friendly fire aoe or that you need to pause too much just play on easy, it will be just like any other dumbed down console rpg.
The combat is designed for the top view baldur's gate style and it's great.
The spell system is one of the best I've seen in an rpg so far (many say mages are a lot more powerful than the other classes) and the combos are really sick, especially the non obvious ones.
If you qq about spells having friendly fire aoe or that you need to pause too much just play on easy, it will be just like any other dumbed down console rpg.
F8L Fool Nov 13, 2009 at 2:33 pm
+1 votes
Mages truly are leaps and bounds ahead of other classes. The only class (actually it's a spec) that comes anywhere near the damage and versatility of a Mage in general is a Ranger. Everything else really falls short.
The shield and board spec works as intended and isn't overpowered. It scales really well with armor too.
In their second installment, or perhaps even the next update, they need to spread the love around to other damage classes. Big time.
The shield and board spec works as intended and isn't overpowered. It scales really well with armor too.
In their second installment, or perhaps even the next update, they need to spread the love around to other damage classes. Big time.
abija Nov 13, 2009 at 5:53 pm
+1 votes
DW Rogues are fine just the builds a little wierd since the problem with daggers using str/cunning modifier instead of splitting 50% with dex. Didn't experiment with 2h/dw wars much.
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