I don't think it was Awakening that changed the new direction for DA2.

Actually, DA2 was already in the works w/ planned changes before DA:O's content was even finished.

See Brent Knowles blog (Lead Designer for DAO) about why he left Bioware:
http://blog.brentknowles.com/2010/08…/#comment-2398

I'm hearing all the talk about the dec cycle being rushed when the game was already being made before origins came out. So they knew they were going to make part 2 the way they did.

Blaming the dev cycle is rubbish it had a 2-3 dev cycle plenty of time to make a game there not blizzard who needs a 6 or more year dev cycle. But hey I'm sure part 3 will be the same as part 2 with plenty of reasons why things had to change.

Well, DAO took literally forever to make - and it shows, as that's a masterpiece.

DA2 taking much, much less surely likely isn't going to be anywhere in DAO's ballpark.

Mmm the streamlining argument, again. Well play DA2 first then comment it…

So, now you play it and feel it streamlined and less good because it is streamlined? The problem I have with that is that none of the streamlining quoted for the demo makes it less good:

• Combat speed increase: In fact it's not really a problem, because the combat feel the same than in DAO, despite the speed increase. And the fights are even quite more tactical overall than in DAO. Moreover it's quite clear they polished more the design of fights to design each with more care, and to put more care about the diversity.
• Class design: Ok ok skills removed and that's bad, but skills was close to pointless crap in DAO and now the classes are quite complicated with multiple trees of talents or specialization, cross links between trees and classes, so all in all a quite complicated class system more complicated than in DAO and that can easily make flee in terror any casual player.
• New dialog system: I don't even quote it. But ok I'll admit this one could be a true streamlining with perverse effects I don't quote.
• Story simplification: DA2 gave up the somehow simple but efficient plan they constantly used in RPG, for something quite complex that is breaking a comfortable linearity taking by hand the player to follow a story. In DA2 it's just the reverse, the player is much less guided, quite more stuff are put out of the pointed paths, all in all it's the reverse of design streamlining.
• Companion equipment limitation: Yeah this is a bit of streamlining but if I wouldn't want it for all party RPG until the end of time, in fact it works very well and still involve the management of 28 slots, plus 30 secondary slots, pick up any other non party RPG around, even the marvelous and already wonderful TES8 will be ridiculous when compared on this point. And that many slots keep you busy and don't make DA2 casual nor less good, from far.
• New special resource system: Well this new system is just great, now collecting resources is fun and rewarding.
• Use of plenty symbolic icons in inventory: This is done with simplified and ugly icons, lol no I don't think that ugly icons are a streamlining. Yes this isn't very pleasant and it decrease a little the global mood, but well for hardcore RPG players this should be a detail, we are above shiny graphics, or you aren't?
• Simplified look of the interface: Could perhaps be considered as a bit of streamlining and with the flaw to be another little damage to the overall mood. But again, it's just a shiny detail that has disappeared in DA2, I could hope Hardcore RPG players are above that sort of shiny details but it seems not. Now Hardcore players look a lot more like magpies than anything else, in my time that sort of stuff wasn't considered a Hardcore quality.
• Abuse of area reuse: In no way it's to classify in the streamlining category, myself I consider it working half well and half not well, it's perhaps a key point making overall DA2 less fun, but I don't think it's the center point.

I like a lot DA2 and take a lot of fun playing it, but if I wasn't a fan of fights, then I'm not sure that I would really like it more than "ok it's good but not more". I haven't clear hypothesis about that, my current feeling is:

• The global design is to let the player more on his own and this doesn't work that well because of exploration design. I consider DA2 improves significantly this point in comparison of what's Bioware is used to do, I consider only from NWN1. But they start from so low quality that anyway in DA2 the exploration isn't that good. And it isn't enough good to sustain well this more free design of DA2 with less structure. Also the duplicates areas doesn't help on this.
• And the attempt to spread companions living out of the camp, ie out of their house is only half successful and tend decrease the overall efficiency to setup companions personality, even if in my opinion they are more attaching.

To come back about general games streamlining: The sad truth about Hardcore players and gaming streamlining is that more and more "Hardcore" players are like under a drug effect and can't anymore play and enjoy games that aren't in the A category. That's this player superficiality that will kill Hardcore games if it ever happen. The perverse effect is there is no counter balance so an indie hardcore game can't have a huge success making people doing business look at the market differently. Nope as only A games are under the radar of Hardcore players, this involve the tendency that changes can only come from big budget games, this limiting a lot the possibility of having overall values change to something more Hardcore.

Actually, I did NOT make a streamlining argument at all in that statement. I *quoted* multiple senior Bioware people who made direct statements about their attitudes and opinions regarding other games that *NO ONE* would consider a RPG yet Bioware touts for their RPG elements, to the point of saying that because there is leveling in Medal of Honor and other online FPS games that people are " playing RPGs although they won’t necessarily call them RPGs."

I have played it (not quite finished yet) and after my first long session I wrote about it here.

Have *you* played Dragon Age 2? I'm sorry, but regardless of whether you 'like' the combat system more or less, there is simply no way a serious-minded person could argue that DA2 is 'more tactical'. Unless you consider Call of Duty more of a strategy game than Civilization V. Dragon Age 2 is a hack & slash where the combat can just happen and you can watch it while eating popcorn like an action movie, which is more or less how the entire thing plays out.

Lol lower the difficulty setting in DAO and you get the same crap. If there's no challenge for sure you'll won't search any tactics, that's the basic. Perhaps you build a too strong party or use a too low difficulty level, try at hard and stop use Aveline. :)

EDIT: I checked very quickly the link you quote, well the "console action-RPG game" is a so superficial assault, enough of that, you arrive quite too late, I won't bother answer to that sort of stuff again.

That's really not true. I would call it roughly equally tactical… some changes in the negative and some in the positive. On hard mode and especially nightmare it's absolutely essential that you use great tactics and consistently pause and plan. Even on normal there are many fights you have to do this for like most bosses and some early encounters with mages and assassins.

The speed is just speed, it is meant to make the game feel more exciting and visceral. The gameplay is still tactical and predominantly the same as Origins was. The only thing they changed about combat that I dislike is adding reinforcement waves to every fight.

I wouldn't call Fallout a shooter, though, it is an RPG in its own right. However, Medal of Honour, Call of Duty and Farmville are definitely not rpgs. While they may some rpg mechanics like upgrading weapons and armours, earn points to do crafting, search for materials to do crafting, running aorund (wait is this a leveling thing now?) and shoot people in Medal of Honor. This does, however, not make them RPGs. It makes them games with RPG mechanics. As far as I know, in Farmville, there is no story, no quests given to you by NPCs, in Call of Duty, you get missions; the same goes for Medal of Honor. But I don't think there are rewards for finishing the missions? Yes, you get a new mission. And maybe a cool new weapon, or an upgraded armour.

And with that said, it is clear why Bioware (EA) wanted to strip away the ability to give follower npcs new armour, and only wanted to give people playing DA2 the ability to customize followers' armours by upgrading their armour. Or by customizing the followers by giving them belts, rings and such. Gloves and boots could maybe added next time? Bioware (and EA) clearly wanted to draw in some of the 10 million people that play Call of Duty - or at least have bought the game, CoD, that is. And they did this by stripping away what someone migt classify as core rpgs mechanics.

However, it seems that Bioware have failed to do what they've set out to do; draw in crowds of call od duty gamers. And the ones that have been drawn in, played DA2 only once, maybe two times at best. And then ´they'll go back to playing Call of Duty…… Interestingly, though, CoD4, got such sales numbers because it dared to provoking, dared to try something new, and dared to have controversial stuff in it as well as pretty good and decent story line.

A game that usually praised here as a combination of rpg, action, adventure and fps is STALKER. It tells a story, it has a level up system (I think?), you can upgrade armours and weapons. You'll meet npcs who give your missions (quests), you'll get rewards, xp and money for doing this. Why is Stalker praised and not DA2 - as they seem to set out to do the same thing? Granted Stalker's world is a lot bigger than the world in DA2.
But still this game works….DA2 does not.

Is this because DA2 is classified as an rpg, not an action adventure…

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Because the 'action-RPG waves' that are in EVERY battle are a fundamental part of the game - difficulty is no longer about challenge but attrition. Tactics are not about an approach but ensuring you will survival multiple waves - which isn't about actual RPG strategy but instead about playing a tower defense or combat simulator game.

Actual strategy and tactics involve assessing a situation and making proper preparations. In a party based RPG that involves being able to see what is going on and who you are facing. Dragon Age: Origins did *all* of that - you saw the battle, you could draw back to see the battlefield, and you could plot your tactical course to deal with it. In DA2 you cannot know the battle scope, cannot see the battlefield, and so there is no way to plan. Sure you can pause and there are 'tactics', but I simply disagree that it is 'the same'.

Just for reference it is pretty clear that when they refer to Fallout they mean Fallout 3 *only*.

There's a big difference between saying the reinforcements harm strategy, which they do, and calling it a hack n' slash game, which you did. That is the comment that made me reply to you… it's nowhere near a hack n' slash game (on PC anyway).

DA2´s combat feels a lot different than DA:O´s, fights are NOT more tactical and there´s abso-fucking-lutely not more diversity in encounters.
On normal and casual the game plays itself, on hard you need to use some strategy, mostly due to idiotic wave mechanic - enemies are mostly same and there´s not even friendly fire, nightmare offers a bit more diversity (rogues are really dangerous, enemies have immunities, there´s friendly fire, plus few other things) but is nigh unplayable due to totally inappropriately limited camera and laughably bad targeting. And I´m speaking from experience - I´ve played most of act 1 on nightmare, the whole act 2 on normal and the whole act 3 on hard. Another thing to note is amount of HP enemies have which is really incompatible with the speed of combat moves and artificially prolongs the combat time (later I cut quite a lot of it by petrify/assassinate combo, but that´s rather specific tactic and afaik there´s nothing as effective for classes other than rogues with assassin spec; and I still had to deal with stupid waves) and makes especially nightmare a total slog.
The amount of opponents you generally face is rather ridiculous and verisimilitude-breaking, just take a stroll through the nightly Kirkwall.
Few permutations in the length of enemies´s health bars, whether there´s an elite rogue or not and limited enemy mage repertoire (also kinda lore breaking with the often use of teleportation) do not more diversity make.
Some boss fights are good, but that´s it. On higher difficulties the combat is "tactical" but mostly not in good ways.

Haha.

Edit: Hahaha!

DA2´s "story" is not complex and its "political" aspects are explored in a lot less detail than in DA:O, player is more guided than in DA:O and there definitely is not "quite more stuff" put out of paths.
DA2´s main plot is more linear than DA:O´s by the virtue of act structure alone (nothing inherently bad with this obviously), but on top of that majority of main plot segments can´t be played in different order and you rarely get some alternatives in solution department.
Out of paths stuff mostly include resources and those funny "quests" where you find an item and return it to its owner for 50 silver. The only notable exceptions were evil books in act 2 and demon scrolls in act 3 (and maybe qunari swords but that´s kinda pushing it). In DA:O, mage tower alone had more of these and some even required tiny bit of thinking.
There´s also "lore gathering", but, again, DA:O had more of this, plus quite a few entries in DA2 are rehashed from DA:O.

Just for the heck of it, let´s take a look at DA:O´s elves/werewolves segment for example.


Altogether that´s pretty much more quest variety and options than all of DA2 and combat encounters are more varied as well.

@txa1265 - The Bioware glasses are pretty thick on some of the DA2 fans here. There's no point in trying to make them understand your view. To some of them, if you don't like DA2, you obviously haven't played it yet. ;)

It's a shame because DA2 has a very solid ground on which to build. The Qunari drama is very intense and the mages vs. templars stuff is really well-suited to some real choice and consequence and political intrigue. Unfortunately the game does not make good on much of it.

There is even less choice in DA2 than the Mass Effect games, which is pretty insane when you think about it.

Yeah, definitely.

Same with time jumps and frame narrative (man, did Alpha Protocol use this device so much more effectively).

I would said there is more choices in DA2, they just aren't in you faces or easy to achieve. You also can't change how the past happened, because that wasn't the point of the game. The game was about how Hawke became the Champion, which you acheive by the end of Act 2…Act 3 is the epilogue.

There is already quite a few differences between my first and my second playthrough and I haven't finished act 1 yet.

Also, ME isn't that great with choices. None affected the game itself and ME2 only had encounters and emails to reflect them. At least DA2 had quests attached to a lot of Origins/Awakening/DLC choices. I suspect DA3 will have the same for DA2 choices.

This is a point that I would agree with. Many have suggested bumping the difficulty up to make it a "tactical" experience, but I don't think that the inherent encounter and combat design allow for a truly "tactical" experience (whether this is good or bad comes down to personal preference). I have found that boosting the difficulty certainly makes the game more challenging, but not in a way that is enjoyable from my perspective.

The way I see it, there are 2 types of difficulty: One type of difficulty changes the way that the A.I. functions, causing enemy units to fight "smarter" and use their abilities to a greater advantage, making each encounter a tactical challenge that requires the player to outmaneuver and outsmart the enemy A.I. through the usage of tactics and a sound pre-battle strategy developed at the outset of the encounter. The other difficulty type is one that I would consider to be "arbitrary difficulty," one which does not effect how the A.I. functions and how it uses the abilities at its disposal, but instead simply boosts the hit points of every enemy unit and "nerfs" certain player abilities. This certainly makes things difficult, but only through forcing a battle of attrition that artificially bumps up the difficulty in a way that is entirely different from the first difficultly type listed above. DA2's difficulty levels are designed with approach 2, in my experience.

I would agree with this as well. The story actually has some very interesting conflicts, and the concept of a story centering around a volatile political situation in a major city instead of destroying the "great evil" is extremely refreshing. Unfortunately, the solid premise and intriguing conflicts are not taken advantage of due to Bioware's linear, cinematic approach that diminishes player choice and the rushed development time.

There are probably more quests where different outcomes means different follow-up quests. I don't think Mass Effect 2 had any of that, and ME1 very little. What I was more saying I guess was you have even less ability to make Hawke your own than you did Shepherd.

I always bashed the ME games for basically making your only choice whether to be an asshole or not, but DA2 does it worse. Most of the dialogue choices are whether to be super nice or a little angry, but still agreeable. That's pretty lame. Also since you start as either an apostate or the sibling of an apostate who helps hide her you can't really define yourself as anything other than pro-mage and anti-templar. One of the first interactions in the game is with a templar and without telling Hawke to do anything he instantly gets in the templar's face with an angry look. So much for roleplaying, you're gonna be Hawke as defined by Bioware and like it!

It's a shame.

The problem with any tactics in DA2 is resource management. If you check out the first wave and plan how to defeat it, you find yourself waiting for cooldowns to finish when the second wave pops in so your tactics become survive till you can use your spells/skills again. I find that frustrating.

It is certainly harmful to tactical planning to have enemies randomly spawn, but that in no way makes it not a tactical game. Also once you realize enemies come in waves every fight you can plan around that, making it somewhat moot.