RPGWatch Forums - Dragon Age - Gamasutra's GotY

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Agree 100% about the Shapeshifting issue, it was definitely underpowered, especially for a specialization based skill. It's a shame because it really is a fun skill to use, it's just not very effecive in the latter half of the game.

I also didn't care for the linear skill trees in DA. Why should a mage be forced to learn Stonefist before Quake, or Frost Weapons before Cone of Cold? What if I don't want those spells at all? I can understand the linear progression for physical skills, but I wish they had done something different for the spell system.

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Originally Posted by Anderson (Post 1060989680)

I played DA on the 360, which no doubt affected my opinion. The control scheme felt awkward. You could not position members individually or effectively, you could not place them on hold individually, selecting skills required multiple button presses, and you could only program one action per character. What that meant was you had to constantly and endlessly micromanage your party's behavior, especially at the higher difficulty levels. I could've used the Tactics, I suppose, but I never really got into that aspect.

Anyhow, combat started to feel tedious around hour 50, and I turned the difficulty down because I got tired of the constant micromanagement and just wanted the game to be over already.

The linearity of it was also a big negative for me. I prefer a more open world design. Not that Bioware games are ever open world. But they usually trade off the open world for an engrossing and well-paced main quest story, which was (imo) absent here.

Boy, I sound grumpy. I'm probably sounding too harsh. It wasn't a bad game by any stretch. I'd give it an 8.0. Good, not great.

I played it on the PS3 and loved it. Tactics is an absolute must, at least on the console version when played on hard. I can hardly imagine playing the game without it, so I understand that you would get tired of micromanagement. :)

I enjoyed the story a lot, especially the parts related to some companions like Morrigan and Alistair.

If I had to complain about something (and it looks like I do) it's too much inventory management (a problem shared with many RPGs, but still) and a bit too much combat in some parts of the game.

DA is game of the year for me, definitely better than Risen, although I enjoyed Risen too.

Too much inventory management.

I have to agree there. It REALLY takes away from my game when I have to worry about what to keep and what to sell simply because I don't have enough room to carry stuff. Not "fun" by any stretch of the imagination. But for those who want realistic sims, perhaps it is….

I prefer infinite capacity like Gothic 2.

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Originally Posted by Thrasher (Post 1060990203)

I have to agree there. It REALLY takes away from my game when I have to worry about what to keep and what to sell simply because I don't have enough room to carry stuff.

Definitely. I missed the backpacks in Ostagar, and it haunted me for the entire remainder of the game. Poor planning by the devs imo.

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Originally Posted by Thrasher (Post 1060990203)

I prefer infinite capacity like Gothic 2.

That… or games with no crap loot. I really wish there'd be more RPGs where the mobs you kill just drop gold (or whatever the currency may be) and that items would be rare and special. The whole "let's fill up the player's inventory with useless crap loot after 25% through the dungeon so he needs to go back to town and so we can artificially extend the playtime of our !epic! game" routine needs to go. Fast.

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Originally Posted by Thrasher (Post 1060990203)

Too much inventory management.

I thought there was too little inventory management. None that mattered, anyway. Just a big list of items and yeah, most of them crap. If they want to put a limit on inventory size they should make the whole thing more interesting, not completely arbitrary filler material. Less crap loot, bigger icons or graphics, varying size and all that. I prefer better defined limits so I can make choices that actually make a difference.

I liked the inventory limits in Baldur's Gate (weight and size) and particularly Diablo (size, pretty graphics, different item types made unique sounds!) and others.

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Originally Posted by Arhu (Post 1060990230)

I liked the inventory limits in Baldur's Gate (weight and size).

Yep, and the fact that every party member had their own inventory.

Inventory management in the original Baldur´s Gate was tedious at best and seriously detractive to the experience due to stack limitations and lack of containers for scrolls etc.
I bet majority of players spent half of the playtime juggling in the inventory screen, especially when playing with more ranged oriented characters.
And it´s not like the first game was overflowing with interesting items either.
Don´t kid yourselves here, guys :).

It definitely got better in the second game but it still was far from smooth sailing.
Of course, mods increasing stacking limits and adding item containers largely remedied this.

DA´s implementation of backpacks is really silly, especially pricewise and its overall inventory system is nothing to call home about but in comparison with vanilla BG it´s heaps better still. Just sell all the crap you don´t need before venturing to dungeons and problem is solved.
Game´s relatively boring itemization is certainly an issue.

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Originally Posted by DeepO (Post 1060990278)

I vastly prefered the Baldur's Gate system to DA. I like as much realism in my game as possible, and I didn't care for the shared inventory in DA, or the lack of encumbrance. I quite enjoyed the "juggling" of items in BG, and I liked how you actually had to have a healing potion in 'your' inventory to use it.

Worst of all, the fact that you can't even drop items in DA is downright laughable.

All those features that you describe I find tedious and boring. But to each his own. :)