Dragon Age 2 - Interview with Mike Laidlaw at Gamespot - Final Thoughts

Yup, the wave drop-in is probably one of the most inexplicably stupid things I've seen in a game of this caliber.

Spending all that time developing a relatively satisfying combat system, with lots of interesting abilities - and then utterly destroying it by making battles completely unpredictable and unfair is just…. mind-boggingly stupid from a design point of view.

You have absolutely no way to prepare in a tactical sense, and all your efforts to position your group wisely are totally wasted.

DArtagnan said:

Yup, the wave drop-in is probably one of the most inexplicably stupid things I've seen in a game of this caliber.

Spending all that time developing a relatively satisfying combat system, with lots of interesting abilities - and then utterly destroying it by making battles completely unpredictable and unfair is just…. mind-boggingly stupid from a design point of view.

You have absolutely no way to prepare in a tactical sense, and all your efforts to position your group wisely are totally wasted.

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Yeah, I'm really not sure why this was considered to be a good design concept. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was only for a select few fights - and if the "reinforcement waves" made sense in terms of location and went along with a logical quest storyline - but having constant reinforcement waves for 90%+ of the fights? That's just absurd and an example of an incredibly poor design choice.

Nerevarine said:

Yeah, I'm really not sure why this was considered to be a good design concept. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was only for a select few fights - and if the "reinforcement waves" made sense in terms of location and went along with a logical quest storyline - but having constant reinforcement waves for 90%+ of the fights? That's just absurd and an example of an incredibly poor design choice.

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Do som people actually like that kind of gameplay? I mean surely bioware tested throughly their own game with multiple people and they found these fights enjoyful because they kept them in the final release. Or was there too little time to change them because they had to rush the game out? Itll be fixed in the next Dragon Age 2012.

Nerevarine said:

Yeah, I'm really not sure why this was considered to be a good design concept. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was only for a select few fights - and if the "reinforcement waves" made sense in terms of location and went along with a logical quest storyline - but having constant reinforcement waves for 90%+ of the fights? That's just absurd and an example of an incredibly poor design choice.

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It smacks of corporate design influence. There's no way an actual experienced designer would suggest such an implementation.

I'd say both of those points are valid. On the rushed development cycle affecting this decision: The combat was obviously balanced with the waves/pop-in enemies idea already implemented into the game, and had they taken the wave mechanic out, they would have needed to re-balance the combat. Given the recycling of areas and several other facets of the game that were clearly half-baked, I don't think there was any chance of this "feature" being taken out - there was simply no looking back due to the limited development time, and thus they designed the combat around this poor design choice.

On corporate design influence (assuming this means something along the lines of "how can we attract the non-RPG crowd?") : This is a potential possibility as well. My guess would be that the concept of having new enemy waves spawn out of nowhere was an attempt at keeping players "on their toes" and giving the illusion that more "visceral action" was occurring on-screen. Making the combat flashy was obviously a huge focus for this game, so the waves may have been a decision that was directly tied to the effort of creating more of an "exciting and visceral" component for gameplay.

I largely agree with the above - waves allow you to have fewer combatants on screen at once, which need not be a purely compute-related decision, but one on making the combat appear long-lasting, detailed and visceral without the area combat effects becoming the automatic go-to due to high volume of enemies, and avoids the 'why are these guys waiting their turn to have a go at me'.

The keeping you on your toes might be another reason, but it would wear thin very quickly with the planning crowd, perhaps it's more aimed at the reaction crowd.

When I say corporate design influence, I don't mean that suits were partaking in the actual design - but that monetary constraints and a narrow time-window enforced a lazy design.

The entire game is extremely telling of how they intended to make this game within a minimal time-frame and maximise profit based on the much superior prequel and the Bioware name.

About the only thing that seems "cared for" - in my opinion - is the actual character development system, which to me is much better than the one in DA:O.

It's a great system, actually, and the combat pace wouldn't have been a huge issue - if only the fights made sense and were fair.

This "monster-closet" spawn thing seems like it completely counteracts the idea of the wide array of combat abilities and the importance of PC placement.

They create this interesting and varied set of combat abilities - and then they nullify the importance of carefully building your character - because you're never really able to plan ahead or make intelligent decisions, because monsters can pop-up anywhere, at any time.

DArtagnan said:

You have absolutely no way to prepare in a tactical sense, and all your efforts to position your group wisely are totally wasted.

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A question on this topic, gentlemen: (for those who have played it)

When preparing for a fight in the corridor of a dungeon/building, do monsters still have the absolutely irritating habit of walking right through your perfectly positioned melee characters in doorways to leisurely walk up and mash your spellcasters? This was always something that irked me about Origins. But given the speed of DA2, I could imagine this being even more annoying.

NWN2 was a little guilty of it as well though - those who have played it will well remember the melee shuffle in doorways in that game.

I like a lot the deep comment from people that haven't played the game.

EDIT: I bet nobody here ever played a single go game. The board start empty and… you don't know where the opponent will place the next pawn… Conclusion of people here, woo stop play that it's crap with no strategy nor tactic level.

EDIT2: That's like the relatively numerous fights of DAO involving spawning and/or reinforcement. I don't remember anyone mentioning that destroyed the tactical level of the fight.

So yes there's a boring abuse of waves and a boring abuse of pointless waves. But there's still an interesting tactical level and quite many interesting waves that aren't pointless.

Dasale is DEFINITELY objective about this

Dasale said:

EDIT: I bet nobody here ever played a single go game. The board start empty and… you don't know where the opponent will place the next pawn… Conclusion of people here, woo stop play that it's crap with no strategy nor tactic level.

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You can influence where they place the next one, no?

Having enemies spawn in based on my actions would be really cool - I could tactically place my party to block key entrance routes, ensure that they only approached from open areas with little cover etc.

You can't compare a strategy game like go to any RPG including the whole BG series and ICWD. I used this to pinpoint how wrong is the reasoning. I hate when Dartagnan is starting arguing about arguing but that's exactly my point here, there's just wrong arguing here.

It's not because you can't plan a fight from begin to end that there's no tactic nor strategy. Non predictable elements won't change the value of tactics and strategies. it's common knowledge to use fog of war, imprecise information and more in wargames. There's still tactics and strategy.

Unpredictable elements that occur will only require that you'll need adapt a tactic or a strategy not that you give up using tactics and strategies at all. It's very very common that tactics and strategy need to be changed and adapted during a game, any strategy game.

Now common, even a game like BG2 doesn't have a such deep strategical level, the fights are just too short for that. But the tactical level is here and tactics can be very short range but very efficient anyway.

I don't remember well but I don't think DAO or DA2 will compare well to BG2, at least ToB, from a tactical depth point of view. But that doesn't mean DAO or DA2 have no tactical depth.

Myself I feel you have more tools and more balanced tools in DA2 than in DAO, but the increase speed decrease the finesse you can put in tuning tactical choices. For example DA2 makes me move a lot more my pawns and build quite more different cooperation type than in DAO. But yeah unlike what I feel I can admit it's more me, for some reason, and overall DAO has perhaps more depth from tactical point of view. For example it's possible I haven't seen some points in DAO fights.

But I can't agree any of both don't have at least a fairly good tactical level for a RPG non turn based but only paused based. A game like FO3 is just ridiculous in comparison for the tactical point of view.

So really I have a huge smile when some Bethesda hardcore fans that are in love with FO3 and haven't yet played DA2 come explain me DA2 is a tactical crap.

Pessimeister said:

A question on this topic, gentlemen: (for those who have played it)

When preparing for a fight in the corridor of a dungeon/building, do monsters still have the absolutely irritating habit of walking right through your perfectly positioned melee characters in doorways to leisurely walk up and mash your spellcasters? This was always something that irked me about Origins. But given the speed of DA2, I could imagine this being even more annoying.

NWN2 was a little guilty of it as well though - those who have played it will well remember the melee shuffle in doorways in that game.

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Yeah in theory this is a DA2 improvement, blocking is efficient in general because the routine is better implemented. But in case you quote you'll need deactivate any tactics because too many fighter attacks imply movements. It's more efficient to use some spells for doing that, and with spells this was working well in DAO too despite the problem you quote. Some area still offer you some narrow corridors where you could use a good enough blocking by two fighters but I haven't tried because for now I played only one fighter and 3 long range, and one fighter, two rogue close range, and a mage. That said with agro it's a point that could work anyway with a fighter behind two long range blocking a path but the the fighter having the agro, well never tried. Also quote some boss will have a very approximative blocking routine, obviously to not allow players have them blocked somewhere, I still used with few intermediate boss that weird tactic.

My feeling is in DA2 you need think tactics in a more dynamic way, it's not just about blocking and a static positioning, but blocking is possible in some cases and few times a static position will make marvel but it's quite more rare.

It's more about positioning (and re positioning), helping, coopering, agro, fleeing, controlling (and blocking is just a possibility), and using talents potions and spells at right time. All of that adapted to enemies in presence, team used, talents and spells available, area architecture available, and yeah current situation, and yeah too there's a margin of error because of the speed and despite you'll pause a lot the game.

You may have used go to try and make a point about unpredictability, but please don't stop me from using it to make a point about influence. Influence (action, reaction whatever you want to call it) is one of the enjoyable aspects of combat and other areas in a computer game. The feeling that your decisions can make a difference. Combat is deeply unsatisfying when a game takes away a difference you would have liked to make. Why would you choose different weapons if they all behaved the same way? Now in DA2 it's clear Bioware have given you lots of ways to make a difference. however, unpredictable waves of enemies work against that if their is no reaction to your actions. On the other hand, if waves did react to your actions, like a go player reacting to the moves of his opponent, then it would be more fun IMHO.

No that's wrong the next waves doesn't change that you can be more efficient in current situation by using better tactics or even some strategy.

You are using tactics for influencing the current fight but also the whole fight. And no, new strong waves won't destroy this and will just force you define new tactics.

You continue think that the only tactics is about planing something from begin to end of fights and that's very wrong, in any game, even in DAO static fights that have no reinforcement, no hidden enemies, no summoning.

EDIT: But I do agree the go comparison isn't exact. But I wonder if you really play chess or go more than for a casual try. Even after years of training and practice, you'll see how opponents can be sometime unpredictable. And that more than once in a game, even a tactic started will have to be changed because you get surprised. Also what you are saying about static fights and tactics is a bit like saying that there's no tactic in go because you can't plan safely a tactic from begin to end of game and nobody can do that, in chess (I know quite better) nor go (that I played only a bit with local level players).

Another point is there isn't constant waves, and in between waves there's a large place for a lot of tactics, and ok some could destroy a current one, but it's a fast game you better pause a lot, and if this happen, notice it and plan something else is fully a tactical analyze. In that sense waves tend make me think more about tactics and I never bother if some will come or not.

Also last point, for some fights, yeah a strong wave can destroy all including making you lost a fight. But that's for the best fights, most often it's more the surprise that made you lost, and anyway restart such of the best fights knowing more about waves coming is a tactical pleasure, well for players enjoying tactics. And it's not for so many fights, plus quite often you can push longer the fights to see more what's coming next.

Pessimeister said:

When preparing for a fight in the corridor of a dungeon/building, do monsters still have the absolutely irritating habit of walking right through your perfectly positioned melee characters in doorways to leisurely walk up and mash your spellcasters?

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Positioning doesn't often work in DA2. You position your party at some chock point and walk one of your chars to trigger a fight only to find out that, after cut-scene, your whole group is back together right in the middle of the enemy mob.

SAGO said:

haha, thats way too personal you ostentatious person

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Well, in my case, I stayed up late in the evening because I WANTED to watch that music videoclips show called "Formel Eins" on TV !

That's how different people can be !

Dasale said:

No that's wrong the next waves doesn't change that you can be more efficient in current situation by using better tactics or even some strategy.

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What Ive read from finnish forums this same tactic works throughout the game even on hard-difficulty:

1. Kill all mages
2. Find a door or som gap and camp there (not sure about this translation)
3. Keep tank and anders alive

Yup, that just about sums it up.

you guys are complaining about difficulty in a roleplaying game made by biowear?

might as well complane that magic and big titz in plate armor are unrealistic in a fantasy setting.

not as if DAO was difficult in any way, i mean, like, gazkang and ser cauthian? are the only bosses in the game that could be considered as a challenge and they are both completely opitional