the cross-class combos basically mean you have to spend time on the Tactics page so that companions don't do stupid things putting their combo-finishing abilities on cooldown before someone uses a combo-opener, or use non-combo abilities on enemies that have a combo effect on them (which is awesome fun to try and Tactic).
I haven't played much with tactics beyond keeping my teammates doing acceptable things before I control them again, but isn't there a status: staggered/brittle/disoriented condition? Can't you just throw that on high priority and not use the ability elsewhere in tree?
The override thing is annoying, though. It's only happened to me noticeably with potions, which is an especially annoying case. Tell the tank to quaff a heal, switch back to main and unpause only to see them revert to attacking and die. Darwinism, Aveline. Darwinism.
the cross-class combos basically mean you have to spend time on the Tactics page so that companions don't do stupid things putting their combo-finishing abilities on cooldown before someone uses a combo-opener, or use non-combo abilities on enemies that have a combo effect on them (which is awesome fun to try and Tactic).
I haven't played much with tactics beyond keeping my teammates doing acceptable things before I control them again, but isn't there a status: staggered/brittle/disoriented condition? Can't you just throw that on high priority and not use the ability elsewhere in tree?
The override thing is annoying, though. It's only happened to me noticeably with potions, which is an especially annoying case. Tell the tank to quaff a heal, switch back to main and unpause only to see them revert to attacking and die. Darwinism, Aveline. Darwinism.
Yes, the "status" tactics are in there. I ranked all finishers pretty much at the top of the list and openers just below them. This worked fine for me with the only caveat being I had to remove them all completely from the rest of the list in fear that they would waste a finisher while everything else was on cooldown.
Why this game doesn't have face codes and "tactic" codes is beyond me.
Nope. Mages in particular are bad at it; during the "finisher" part of their auto-attack combo (where they slam the staff down on the ground) is the worst time to attempt casting anything with them; sometimes they'll just be there saying "nope, gotta finish this three-second animation reel first before I do anything... oops, times up for that ability cast, back to auto-attacking!"
I had this exact same problem and I hated it so much. Many times I would want to move my mage out of the way of the 3 dudes coming to beat on them, but they're like NO PLEASE LET ME FINISH THIS EPIC ATTACK! Then they get stunlocked to almost death.
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
Then I literally have never had a single problem you have had.
That's not to say you aren't having them, obviously, but...sorry?
I've had the same thing happen while trying to manage mages. There will be plenty of times where the potion buttons are greyed out because they're mid-"attack" animation. Additionally I'll try to give them orders and they'll continue to autoattack.
It's not major; more of an annoyance than anything. But I'll vouch for him and say that it's happened to me quite a bit.
I've also had my archer autoattacking an enemy who runs around a corner and found myself locked in place for a moment. The WASD keys do nothing to make him move as he's trying to attack through the wall... but can't.
Then I literally have never had a single problem you have had.
That's not to say you aren't having them, obviously, but...sorry?
I've had the same thing happen while trying to manage mages. There will be plenty of times where the potion buttons are greyed out because they're mid-"attack" animation. Additionally I'll try to give them orders and they'll continue to autoattack.
It's not major; more of an annoyance than anything. But I'll vouch for him and say that it's happened to me quite a bit.
I've also had my archer autoattacking an enemy who runs around a corner and found myself locked in place for a moment. The WASD keys do nothing to make him move as he's trying to attack through the wall... but can't.
Fenris has inevitably been auto-attacking people very far away in my game. Like, he'll run past the first group to the archers if I don't manage him.
So, looking at Merills special tree, are you meant to build her with Con taking the place of Willpower or something?
Pretty much. Get a bunch of sustainables to eat away all her mana and just pump con/magic and flip on her blood magic. If you can respec her, even better cause then you can take out the points they 'wasted' in the other stats.
So, looking at Merills special tree, are you meant to build her with Con taking the place of Willpower or something?
Pretty much. Get a bunch of sustainables to eat away all her mana and just pump con/magic and flip on her blood magic. If you can respec her, even better cause then you can take out the points they 'wasted' in the other stats.
Bingo. Just make sure in her tactics you add 'Health<25% = deactivate blood magic, use potion'.
So, looking at Merills special tree, are you meant to build her with Con taking the place of Willpower or something?
Pretty much. Get a bunch of sustainables to eat away all her mana and just pump con/magic and flip on her blood magic. If you can respec her, even better cause then you can take out the points they 'wasted' in the other stats.
Bingo. Just make sure in her tactics you add 'Health>25% = deactivate blood magic, use potion'.
I seem to recall this tactic + Arcane Warrior making DA:O extraordinarily easy.
I've had both the 'allies ignore the order you just gave them as soon as you switch to a different character' as well as the 'controlled (ranged) character stops auto attacking after a single attack, despite the targeted character still being alive' bugs happen. I want to say that it has to do with the whole ignoring a previous order if you happen to get hit with even a glancing blow thing, but I've had it when the character is standing alone with no enemies attacking him before.
I also haven't had much luck with the enemies>any: attack tactic, it usually works fine if the character is close enough, but when I switch to varric, anders just stands there being dumb and only using spells in his tactics, but no autoattacks, having tried both the passive mode that I wanted, as well as ranged and even aggressive. And I can't get a good set of tactics to work with the tank mode, as soon as I switch to a ranged character, my Hawke kills her current enemy and runs out of melee to stand dumbly by my controlled ranged character.
I've stopped using the 'Enemy: Any => Attack' tactic and switched to having them attack lowest health enemies. This gives my teammates a definite target, and also helps finish off guys so they aren't running around with a sliver of health doing damage.
I've thought about having them attack Hawke's target, but usually I'm directing Hawke and I tend to switch targets a lot in order to knock someone away from a teammate... if my teammate is then also attacking that guy, shedding aggro from them becomes more difficult.
Also, I hate that 'staff-slamming' animation that mages do. It's too long and you can't cancel it. I've had the same problem as others where I need the mage to heal, or run, or something but they just have to finish that attack.
Character-driven is all well and good, but when I am given little reason to really get behind what my character is doing, and given a pretty weak and underdeveloped goal, it's hard to care about anything. They could have at least introduced some sort of major reason that I need money for ASAP that's more compelling than "your family isn't rich, so let's get rich!" Right now I am not invested in my character and what she is doing, and this is really the first time in a Bioware game I can say that.
An antagonist would be nice, too. Even something like a dude who is trying to sabatoge my efforts in order to get in on the expedition ahead of me, or a rival family that doesn't want mine to get it's honor back, or something.
You're missing the point. Like, really missing it. Hawke is a normal dude. Normal dudes try to *gasp* improve their station, get rich, live the easy life, look after the people they care about. That's what we all do. You know who has rivals? heroes and pokemon trainers.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm saying the point makes for a dull narrative so far that is failing to make me actually interested and invested in what's going on.
Is there an "Out of Combat" tactic setting or is it actually not in the game? It seems like a way too simple one to be missed out.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
Meh, different opinions I guess.
I honestly thought the main plot to DA1 was boring and it was the characters and the world that interested me, I mean all the darkspawn did was snarl and being menacing, it was the politics with Loghain and such that made for good stuff, heck to me everything after the Landsmeet was just epilogue. I got more of that in DA2 so I liked it even more.
I've seen "get a squad together and go fight some big bad" more than enough times in video games...and it is nice that the industry is trying to trend away from that somewhat...
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
Character-driven is all well and good, but when I am given little reason to really get behind what my character is doing, and given a pretty weak and underdeveloped goal, it's hard to care about anything. They could have at least introduced some sort of major reason that I need money for ASAP that's more compelling than "your family isn't rich, so let's get rich!" Right now I am not invested in my character and what she is doing, and this is really the first time in a Bioware game I can say that.
An antagonist would be nice, too. Even something like a dude who is trying to sabatoge my efforts in order to get in on the expedition ahead of me, or a rival family that doesn't want mine to get it's honor back, or something.
You're missing the point. Like, really missing it. Hawke is a normal dude. Normal dudes try to *gasp* improve their station, get rich, live the easy life, look after the people they care about. That's what we all do. You know who has rivals? heroes and pokemon trainers.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm saying the point makes for a dull narrative so far that is failing to make me actually interested and invested in what's going on.
I thought they went beyond the "your family isn't rich... so let's get rich" pretty well. At the start of the game you're trying to get into the city at all. There's your motivation.
Then in Act 1, you're trying not to be destitute. It's a lot deeper than "hey, let's get rich" and more of a "let's no live in the dregs of society with my uncle who's left the same damned piece of cheese on a barrel for years." The expedition is an opportunity to do just that. It's not the goal as much as the vehicle.
Humble origins... and through those dealings you start to make a difference in the city. The money quest is just a nudge to get your Hawke involved, and it does so rather well.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
Yeah. Not every story needs someone in the background twirling their mustache whose only purpose in the story is hatin'.
There can be many different types of struggles in a story.
Hawke's struggle is simply against his/her environment and no specific person.
I honestly thought the main plot to DA1 was boring and it was the characters and the world that interested me, I mean all the darkspawn did was snarl and being menacing, it was the politics with Loghain and such that made for good stuff, heck to me everything after the Landsmeet was just epilogue. I got more of that in DA2 so I liked it even more.
I've seen "get a squad together and go fight some big bad" more than enough times in video games...and it is nice that the industry is trying to trend away from that somewhat...
ME2 was far more about that, and it had a similarly weak pacing because of it.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I honestly thought the main plot to DA1 was boring and it was the characters and the world that interested me, I mean all the darkspawn did was snarl and being menacing, it was the politics with Loghain and such that made for good stuff, heck to me everything after the Landsmeet was just epilogue. I got more of that in DA2 so I liked it even more.
I've seen "get a squad together and go fight some big bad" more than enough times in video games...and it is nice that the industry is trying to trend away from that somewhat...
ME2 was far more about that, and it had a similarly weak pacing because of it.
Thing about ME2 is that it's a direct sequel to ME1.
The pacing/general plot was already set and it has to be framed around that. And that general plot is basically "Shepard and friends against the universe-ending evil."
So, basically they were trying to have more a personal story while the threat of the big bad still looms. It was like "Man...more problems..." one second, then "Oh shit, giant bugs!" the next.
That's why the pacing was bad. DA2 fares much better because it was about Hawke's struggle from the very beginning.
See, a few hours into DA1 I not only had a really important and urgent goal to work towards, I had three antagonists, too. There was the big bad archdemon, but there was also Howe who made things personal for my human noble, and Loghain who was impeding me every chance he had, and who had set me up to die.
Between giving me baddies that I really wanted to kill/stop/get revenge on/bring to justice/smack in the face, and giving me something important to do, I was pulled in very easily.
You can set Merill up with as much as 7 mana to 1 heath conversion rate if you friend her. Which means if you pump up her health she basically has a endless supply of mana for casting.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
Yeah, but not every story needs to be about going to beat someone up because they crossed you and now you want payback.
I mean if you like that story that's cool, and I'm not going to pretend like I don't either.
Just that I don't need that type of story all the time. Characters and plot can have different kinds of motivation. And just because a conflict isn't visible in a physical form doesn't mean it does not exist.
Also, many of the side quests in Act 1 are way more than just side quests. Some are nods to DA1, some establish atmosphere for Kirkwall itself, and some are seeds that grow and sprout in Act 2 and 3.
Throw away sidequest to find a dudes missing wife? Simple pointless exercise to escort a guy named Ketogen? The complete cliche rescueing a nobles kidnapped son?
Instead of just writing them off as stupid excessive sides quests, perhaps try watching the snowballs as they start rolling down the hill.
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Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
You know what? Everyone has different tastes and opinions, but there's something we can all agree on...
...thank god Morrigan wasn't in DA2.
;-)
Speak for yourself. I LIKED Morrigan.
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Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
Here's the thing, though: DA:O was a deconstruction (or maybe a reconstruction, it's actually hard to tell with DA:O) of the epic fantasy genre. It has all the things that your typical fantasy adventure game: tragic origin story, betrayal, forming a ragtag bunch of heroes to fight a giant evil monster... that's basically every fantasy RPG on the market. Within those boundaries, Bioware snuck in a lot of very cool elements, designing cultural implications of mages, for example, or sliding some cultural parallels between the real world and fantasy cultures that don't match what we're used to (the Dwarves were American, not Scottish, for example. Also gigantic assholes).
DA2 then deconstructs DA:O by having just as many interesting characters, cultures, and conflicts, but housing them in a more personal story, making it about one dude or chick who just has a really exciting life, but isn't on any grand quest. I think I got more satisfaction playing a warrior who is looking out for her mom and little sister than I did from saving Ferelden from the Archdemon, because that was a situation that I, a human playing a game, could relate to in real life. I thought it was pretty freeing to have a first act that was all about running around making money and a name for myself, because it actually made what happened later plausible. So many games have your character rising from complete obscurity to save the day... what's wrong where you're established as a badass over the course of years? I got drawn in by the world of Kirkwall and its complexities as much or more than feeling invested in wanting to kill a very large lizard or a dude that left me to die.
Mass Effect plays with this a little, but even there, Shepard starts off as an in-universe Memetic Badass. You don't see Shepard on Torfan or Akuze or wherever, earning the cred that would lead him/her to being the first human Spectre.
Anyway, I can see why one might be uncomfortable with the way that DA2 handles the story. It's different, it's not terribly cliche'. That doesn't mean that it's not awesome. Because it totally is.
I'm not saying things always have to be the same. I just don't find the "conflict" in this part of the game to be engaging at all. Like, okay, they're poor and don't want to be poor. It's a believable motivation, but it's just not a very interesting one for me on it's own. If there was a bigger issue that was driving the need for money and/or the need to become a noble family again, beyond simply wanting it, I think it would be much better.
And the whole "your sibling is a runaway mage" thing feels hollow, too. I never have to hide her or fight off pursuers or even keep her a secret. I can basically just have her run around in broad daylight casting spells all willy-nilly and tell everyone I can that she's a mage with little to no consequence. If the issue of keeping her safe had a bigger focus at the same time as the raising money issue, that would at least have given me some sort of hook .
Heck, the two issues could be combined: say some important noble finds out about the apostate in my family, and decides to blackmail us. Boom, we now have an urgent reason to make money and raise out status fast. That's just one example of something they could have done to have more of a plot hook.
But hey, I'm not saying anyone is wrong for finding it inteesting enough. But for me, this is probably the least interested I've ever been in a Bioware plot. I still like the game as a whole, but I am dissapointed at the same time.
As an aside(Act 1 spoilers):
What was with that guy offering to pay my way in to the expedition showing up like 12 hours in? I think I literally had one sidequest left by the time he had shown up, which meant I had shitloads of cash. Wouldn't it make more sense to have him pop up a lot sooner, as to give the player an alternative to spending a bunch of time on sidequests(with future consequences, I imagine)? By the time he shows up, the idea of borrowing money from him and then paying him back double later makes no sense.
I guess it gives players an out if they managed to blow all the money they made, from a metagaming perspective. Still, seems weird to me.
Don't knock on Origins for being cliche. That was a very well done story of revenge and antagonism, and you could choose how you wanted it to go down as well. I had a long list of things you're free to choose in the story, but then accidentally deleted them while spoiler tagging... >_<
Here's the thing, though: DA:O was a deconstruction (or maybe a reconstruction, it's actually hard to tell with DA:O) of the epic fantasy genre. It has all the things that your typical fantasy adventure game: tragic origin story, betrayal, forming a ragtag bunch of heroes to fight a giant evil monster... that's basically every fantasy RPG on the market. Within those boundaries, Bioware snuck in a lot of very cool elements, designing cultural implications of mages, for example, or sliding some cultural parallels between the real world and fantasy cultures that don't match what we're used to (the Dwarves were American, not Scottish, for example. Also gigantic assholes).
DA2 then deconstructs DA:O by having just as many interesting characters, cultures, and conflicts, but housing them in a more personal story, making it about one dude or chick who just has a really exciting life, but isn't on any grand quest. I think I got more satisfaction playing a warrior who is looking out for her mom and little sister than I did from saving Ferelden from the Archdemon, because that was a situation that I, a human playing a game, could relate to in real life. I thought it was pretty freeing to have a first act that was all about running around making money and a name for myself, because it actually made what happened later plausible. So many games have your character rising from complete obscurity to save the day... what's wrong where you're established as a badass over the course of years? I got drawn in by the world of Kirkwall and its complexities as much or more than feeling invested in wanting to kill a very large lizard or a dude that left me to die.
Mass Effect plays with this a little, but even there, Shepard starts off as an in-universe Memetic Badass. You don't see Shepard on Torfan or Akuze or wherever, earning the cred that would lead him/her to being the first human Spectre.
Anyway, I can see why one might be uncomfortable with the way that DA2 handles the story. It's different, it's not terribly cliche'. That doesn't mean that it's not awesome. Because it totally is.
Talking about memetic badasses or whatever, the disconnect of people talking and having a history with hawke assumed an awful lot of context which the game never gave us kinda created a bit of a disconnect, especially after the first timeskip, though also with the later ones to a lesser extent.
I'm not saying things always have to be the same. I just don't find the "conflict" in this part of the game to be engaging at all. Like, okay, they're poor and don't want to be poor. It's a believable motivation, but it's just not a very interesting one for me on it's own. If there was a bigger issue that was driving the need for money and/or the need to become a noble family again, beyond simply wanting it, I think it would be much better.
There's this thing they teach in writing school called "rising action." It's where you start the show, you introduce some characters and a basic conflict, and then you allow the pot to simmer for awhile before something big happens. Act I is the rising action of DA2. Not all works introduce their major villain in the first act... for example, in Dusk 'Til Dawn, the vampires don't show up until about 45 minutes into the movie, allowing character beats between the gansters and preacher's family to be set up and mean something later. Having a big conflict here seems unnecessary, given that there's huge conflicts in the next two acts.
And the whole "your sibling is a runaway mage" thing feels hollow, too. I never have to hide her or fight off pursuers or even keep her a secret. I can basically just have her run around in broad daylight casting spells all willy-nilly and tell everyone I can that she's a mage with little to no consequence. If the issue of keeping her safe had a bigger focus at the same time as the raising money issue, that would at least have given me some sort of hook .
I attribute that to the fact that most of the fighting I do on the streets is at night, away from Templars, and, frankly, the Templars have bigger things to worry about than one meek apostate. And they don't want to be killed by Hawke. And they don't even ignore her forever. Spoiler warning.
As an aside(Act 1 spoilers):
What was with that guy offering to pay my way in to the expedition showing up like 12 hours in? I think I literally had one sidequest left by the time he had shown up, which meant I had shitloads of cash. Wouldn't it make more sense to have him pop up a lot sooner, as to give the player an alternative to spending a bunch of time on sidequests(with future consequences, I imagine)? By the time he shows up, the idea of borrowing money from him and then paying him back double later makes no sense.
I guess it gives players an out if they managed to blow all the money they made, from a metagaming perspective. Still, seems weird to me.
Don't knock on Origins for being cliche. That was a very well done story of revenge and antagonism, and you could choose how you wanted it to go down as well. I had a long list of things you're free to choose in the story, but then accidentally deleted them while spoiler tagging... >_<
I'm not knocking on Origins at all. I'm just saying that they purposefully used or abused every epic fantasy trope and gimmick in the book in an attempt to re-define the genre on some level. They did it really well.
Talking about memetic badasses or whatever, the disconnect of people talking and having a history with hawke assumed an awful lot of context which the game never gave us kinda created a bit of a disconnect, especially after the first timeskip, though also with the later ones to a lesser extent.
I liked talking to Lady Elegant or other folks you knew from the timeskips. Made it seem like you didn't just step into a time machine and go three years into the future at the end of each act.
I'm not saying things always have to be the same. I just don't find the "conflict" in this part of the game to be engaging at all.
You could have stopped right here. This is perfectly fine, this is after all a very subjective issue. But it doesn't make the story they're telling bad or wrong. Different people like different things. Deviating from the Heroes Quest isn't for you, I guess, but for some of us it's a breath of fresh air.
Fortunately there are a million and one games that stick to more traditional antagonist tropes.
What was with that guy offering to pay my way in to the expedition showing up like 12 hours in? I think I literally had one sidequest left by the time he had shown up, which meant I had shitloads of cash. Wouldn't it make more sense to have him pop up a lot sooner, as to give the player an alternative to spending a bunch of time on sidequests(with future consequences, I imagine)? By the time he shows up, the idea of borrowing money from him and then paying him back double later makes no sense.
I guess it gives players an out if they managed to blow all the money they made, from a metagaming perspective. Still, seems weird to me.
I believe he only shows up after you've completed all the Main Story quests (except the Deep Roads Expedition, obviously). So he's not only useful for saving you if you spend all your cash, he's also handy if you're doing a speedrun: knock out the Main quests, grab Anders, strike a deal with Dougal, head to the Deep Roads.
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While I don't think it's nearly as much of a departure as people made it out to be pre-release, the "plenty of other games doing X" kinda gets to me, especially for this series. Because there really weren't any other games in this subgenre, at least not this console generation.
Whether or not you like the smaller scale of DA2 is mostly going to end up as a matter of taste, but I for one prefer it. Hawke felt more like an actual person to me, who was thrust into a position of influence rather than having one by virtue of being the player character. I got more of the impression that the game world was a place where things happened independent of me.
Everyone's probably seen this already, but I'll post it anyway:
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I haven't played much with tactics beyond keeping my teammates doing acceptable things before I control them again, but isn't there a status: staggered/brittle/disoriented condition? Can't you just throw that on high priority and not use the ability elsewhere in tree?
The override thing is annoying, though. It's only happened to me noticeably with potions, which is an especially annoying case. Tell the tank to quaff a heal, switch back to main and unpause only to see them revert to attacking and die. Darwinism, Aveline. Darwinism.
Yes, the "status" tactics are in there. I ranked all finishers pretty much at the top of the list and openers just below them. This worked fine for me with the only caveat being I had to remove them all completely from the rest of the list in fear that they would waste a finisher while everything else was on cooldown.
Why this game doesn't have face codes and "tactic" codes is beyond me.
I had this exact same problem and I hated it so much. Many times I would want to move my mage out of the way of the 3 dudes coming to beat on them, but they're like NO PLEASE LET ME FINISH THIS EPIC ATTACK! Then they get stunlocked to almost death.
I've had the same thing happen while trying to manage mages. There will be plenty of times where the potion buttons are greyed out because they're mid-"attack" animation. Additionally I'll try to give them orders and they'll continue to autoattack.
It's not major; more of an annoyance than anything. But I'll vouch for him and say that it's happened to me quite a bit.
I've also had my archer autoattacking an enemy who runs around a corner and found myself locked in place for a moment. The WASD keys do nothing to make him move as he's trying to attack through the wall... but can't.
-Z
Fenris has inevitably been auto-attacking people very far away in my game. Like, he'll run past the first group to the archers if I don't manage him.
Pretty much. Get a bunch of sustainables to eat away all her mana and just pump con/magic and flip on her blood magic. If you can respec her, even better cause then you can take out the points they 'wasted' in the other stats.
Bingo. Just make sure in her tactics you add 'Health<25% = deactivate blood magic, use potion'.
I also haven't had much luck with the enemies>any: attack tactic, it usually works fine if the character is close enough, but when I switch to varric, anders just stands there being dumb and only using spells in his tactics, but no autoattacks, having tried both the passive mode that I wanted, as well as ranged and even aggressive. And I can't get a good set of tactics to work with the tank mode, as soon as I switch to a ranged character, my Hawke kills her current enemy and runs out of melee to stand dumbly by my controlled ranged character.
I've thought about having them attack Hawke's target, but usually I'm directing Hawke and I tend to switch targets a lot in order to knock someone away from a teammate... if my teammate is then also attacking that guy, shedding aggro from them becomes more difficult.
Also, I hate that 'staff-slamming' animation that mages do. It's too long and you can't cancel it. I've had the same problem as others where I need the mage to heal, or run, or something but they just have to finish that attack.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm saying the point makes for a dull narrative so far that is failing to make me actually interested and invested in what's going on.
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I honestly thought the main plot to DA1 was boring and it was the characters and the world that interested me, I mean all the darkspawn did was snarl and being menacing, it was the politics with Loghain and such that made for good stuff, heck to me everything after the Landsmeet was just epilogue. I got more of that in DA2 so I liked it even more.
I've seen "get a squad together and go fight some big bad" more than enough times in video games...and it is nice that the industry is trying to trend away from that somewhat...
I thought they went beyond the "your family isn't rich... so let's get rich" pretty well. At the start of the game you're trying to get into the city at all. There's your motivation.
Then in Act 1, you're trying not to be destitute. It's a lot deeper than "hey, let's get rich" and more of a "let's no live in the dregs of society with my uncle who's left the same damned piece of cheese on a barrel for years." The expedition is an opportunity to do just that. It's not the goal as much as the vehicle.
Humble origins... and through those dealings you start to make a difference in the city. The money quest is just a nudge to get your Hawke involved, and it does so rather well.
-Z
There can be many different types of struggles in a story.
Hawke's struggle is simply against his/her environment and no specific person.
ME2 was far more about that, and it had a similarly weak pacing because of it.
Thing about ME2 is that it's a direct sequel to ME1.
The pacing/general plot was already set and it has to be framed around that. And that general plot is basically "Shepard and friends against the universe-ending evil."
So, basically they were trying to have more a personal story while the threat of the big bad still looms. It was like "Man...more problems..." one second, then "Oh shit, giant bugs!" the next.
That's why the pacing was bad. DA2 fares much better because it was about Hawke's struggle from the very beginning.
Between giving me baddies that I really wanted to kill/stop/get revenge on/bring to justice/smack in the face, and giving me something important to do, I was pulled in very easily.
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I mean if you like that story that's cool, and I'm not going to pretend like I don't either.
Just that I don't need that type of story all the time. Characters and plot can have different kinds of motivation. And just because a conflict isn't visible in a physical form doesn't mean it does not exist.
Throw away sidequest to find a dudes missing wife? Simple pointless exercise to escort a guy named Ketogen? The complete cliche rescueing a nobles kidnapped son?
Instead of just writing them off as stupid excessive sides quests, perhaps try watching the snowballs as they start rolling down the hill.
...thank god Morrigan wasn't in DA2.
;-)
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Speak for yourself. I LIKED Morrigan.
You didn't see what I did there, did you? Or maybe I didn't see what you just did...
I'm confused now. It's all gone wrong.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
DA2 then deconstructs DA:O by having just as many interesting characters, cultures, and conflicts, but housing them in a more personal story, making it about one dude or chick who just has a really exciting life, but isn't on any grand quest. I think I got more satisfaction playing a warrior who is looking out for her mom and little sister than I did from saving Ferelden from the Archdemon, because that was a situation that I, a human playing a game, could relate to in real life. I thought it was pretty freeing to have a first act that was all about running around making money and a name for myself, because it actually made what happened later plausible. So many games have your character rising from complete obscurity to save the day... what's wrong where you're established as a badass over the course of years? I got drawn in by the world of Kirkwall and its complexities as much or more than feeling invested in wanting to kill a very large lizard or a dude that left me to die.
Mass Effect plays with this a little, but even there, Shepard starts off as an in-universe Memetic Badass. You don't see Shepard on Torfan or Akuze or wherever, earning the cred that would lead him/her to being the first human Spectre.
Anyway, I can see why one might be uncomfortable with the way that DA2 handles the story. It's different, it's not terribly cliche'. That doesn't mean that it's not awesome. Because it totally is.
And the whole "your sibling is a runaway mage" thing feels hollow, too. I never have to hide her or fight off pursuers or even keep her a secret. I can basically just have her run around in broad daylight casting spells all willy-nilly and tell everyone I can that she's a mage with little to no consequence. If the issue of keeping her safe had a bigger focus at the same time as the raising money issue, that would at least have given me some sort of hook .
Heck, the two issues could be combined: say some important noble finds out about the apostate in my family, and decides to blackmail us. Boom, we now have an urgent reason to make money and raise out status fast. That's just one example of something they could have done to have more of a plot hook.
But hey, I'm not saying anyone is wrong for finding it inteesting enough. But for me, this is probably the least interested I've ever been in a Bioware plot. I still like the game as a whole, but I am dissapointed at the same time.
As an aside(Act 1 spoilers):
I guess it gives players an out if they managed to blow all the money they made, from a metagaming perspective. Still, seems weird to me.
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Eh, what he said.
If anything she was conspicuously absent. I bet my dog there's going to be a morrigan dlc.
There's this thing they teach in writing school called "rising action." It's where you start the show, you introduce some characters and a basic conflict, and then you allow the pot to simmer for awhile before something big happens. Act I is the rising action of DA2. Not all works introduce their major villain in the first act... for example, in Dusk 'Til Dawn, the vampires don't show up until about 45 minutes into the movie, allowing character beats between the gansters and preacher's family to be set up and mean something later. Having a big conflict here seems unnecessary, given that there's huge conflicts in the next two acts.
I attribute that to the fact that most of the fighting I do on the streets is at night, away from Templars, and, frankly, the Templars have bigger things to worry about than one meek apostate. And they don't want to be killed by Hawke. And they don't even ignore her forever. Spoiler warning.
You answered your own question.
I'm not knocking on Origins at all. I'm just saying that they purposefully used or abused every epic fantasy trope and gimmick in the book in an attempt to re-define the genre on some level. They did it really well.
I liked talking to Lady Elegant or other folks you knew from the timeskips. Made it seem like you didn't just step into a time machine and go three years into the future at the end of each act.
You could have stopped right here. This is perfectly fine, this is after all a very subjective issue. But it doesn't make the story they're telling bad or wrong. Different people like different things. Deviating from the Heroes Quest isn't for you, I guess, but for some of us it's a breath of fresh air.
Fortunately there are a million and one games that stick to more traditional antagonist tropes.
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Everyone's probably seen this already, but I'll post it anyway:
It's just as well they got out of their pattern.