Dhruin
SasqWatch
Shamus Young has decided to experiment with a new format for his Dragon Age review, Tweeting quick comments as he plays and then coming back to flesh it out. It's not a format that works for me and I suspect it inherently favours a negative vibe but that's Shamus' schtick, anyway. Here's a bit on difficulty from Part 3:
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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.Feels like #DragonAge on Easy is still a little harder than #KOTOR on normal. I guess I need more micro-mgmt.
The difficulty in this game is a mess. Some people are saying it’s too easy even when playing on hard. Some say it’s too hard even when playing on easy. Some say it goes from boring to impossible on a whim. There are two broken things here.
One is that mage powers tend to dominate the game, and not all mage powers are created equal. When I was talking about how hard the game was, people responded with:
Just use [Forcefield, a power I didn't have] and then follow up with [another power that was way down a skill tree I'd never even looked at] and if you must, then have someone else follow up with [another power I hadn't acquired]. This game is TOO EASY.
It’s very easy to miss or overlook key game-breaking powers, and there’s no way to respec.
The other problem is that the system of auto-scaling enemies is broken. You’ll get wiped by a room full of common mooks. Then you work past that and end up steamrolling a boss. The difficulty is all over the place.
I’ve been through the bulk of the game twice now, both times as primal mages, both times using the same play styles. And the challenge level of the game feels more or less random. The first time I did the Deep Roads the game was insanely hard, to the point where even regular encounters required multiple attempts.
The second time through the game I did the Deep Roads and it was pretty average. A couple of hard boss fights, but nothing game-ruining.
This takes away all sense of accomplishment for me. When I win handily, I don’t feel like I out-maneuvered a tough opponent, I feel like the game under-estimated me and gave me foes that were too weak. When I lose, I don’t feel like I did something wrong, I feel like the game just murdered me with tough foes.
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