It's never been said that in DAO2 the RPG numbers, stats, classes, inventory, and so on have been removed in DAO2, they only have been pushed back. Only some players either fake pretend all is removed, either have a real problem of understanding.
Wait, what? Skills were for all intents and purposes removed, you no longer put points into skills(Coercion, trap making, pick pocketing, ect). Instead, the now omitted skills are based off various stats(STR, DEX, CON, ect), which seems silly as someone with zero training yet immense dexterity/intelligence won't be able to magically unlock a door or chest. The removal of stat(tier) based non-combat skills is ridiculous, even more so when looking back at DA:O which had them…
Anytime you limit C&C, and removing stat based skills is just that, you lose something - be it re-playability, plausibility and/or immersion. In DA:O your decisions had at least some impact/importance especially early on… EG If, upon leveling up, you take a skill outside of combat training you may have been unable to acquire a desired combat talent(In other words combat training at Expert level is not enough to unlock Master level talents). Conversely, if you had elected to dump all points into combat training you would be unable to pass speech checks or any other stat(tier) based skill the PC might have taken(As a rogue trap making was fairly important since it also added to trap sensing).
Honestly, I'm trying to see a positive in the removal of stat based skills, but I'm not having much luck… Tell me how that's a positive, beyond the obvious,
So Peter Molyneux got up on stage at GDC last year and said, "Our mandate for Fable III is to sell five million copies this time, and that's why we are making specific streamlining decisions." Have you had any mandate? "We want a bump. We want to reach out to more people. We want more people to like Dragon Age II than Dragon Age Origins."
ML: Huh! Okay. So I think that's a goal, but when you say "mandate," it becomes a much harsher thing. Mandate is a "you must," and the decisions will be made due to focus groups or something.
For me, I guess, fundamentally, there are more people who are ready to play RPGs than realize it. These are people who will play FarmVille. These are people who have shot enough people in the head that they've leveled up in Medal of Honor. They've gained XP and have received awards as a result. That's an RPG mechanic. They've played [Grand Theft Auto] San Andreas and they've run enough, and gotten buff enough, that their endurance is a higher. They've leveled.
So I think there's more people out there with RPGs, and then it's honestly on RPGs to try to figure out how to take the mechanics that people are actually loving in other genres and say, "No, no, no. We had those years ago, but we understand that they kind of were scary."
So there was no mandate, but I mean there were decisions that we made as a team that said, "Okay, this is, I think, more welcoming." Not "dumbed down" or anything like that, but welcoming. Like starting the game, your character walks up, says something kind of over the top, and immediately starts exploding Darkspawn. I haven't set my decks at all. I haven't spent points.
What it does, is it lets you get into the game and go, "Okay, cool. This is what their combat is like. I get that." Then the next thing you do is build your character.
Then you level up and you start spending points, and the RPG mechanics are introduced in a way that's gradual, in a way that welcomes someone who would otherwise maybe go, "Whoa! Too complex!" and shut it off immediately, and lets them slide into it without even recognizing it ‑‑ which frankly, ideally increases the overall RPG customer base, which means we can make more RPGs, which means I can play more RPGs that I don't know the ending to. I like that.
A rose by any other name…
But hey, I'm not completely close-minded(at least on this topic). Explain to me how the removal of stat(tier) based skills is not "dumbing down" or "streamlining". Or if you desire take it a step further and convince me that streamlining(which has already been an admitted goal in the pursuit of potential costumers) does not equate to dumbing down…
The case for streamlining is as follows,
Gamers like games(from different genres) that contain some RPG mechanics.
Some gamers would probably like RPGs if they were easier to understand.
Some RPG mechanics are difficult to understand.
Therefore, some RPG mechanics should be simplified or removed -> streamlined.
What's the problem with the above argument? "Some RPG mechanics"! Which RPG mechanics are too difficult to understand or too off-putting for the uninitiated that they must be simplified/removed? That line varies from person to person, and if you push it further and further, games may no longer be recognizable/identifiable.
The so called "haters" might be making a mountain out of a molehill… Then again, streamlining might be making a molehill from what was once a mountain.
4) There is dialogue.
Why does it hurt some of you so much if we want to play this?
If there weren't dialogue something would be terribly wrong!
Nobody seems hurt… Upset that Bioware has continued down a path of simplification/streamlining? Yes.
To me it's death by a thousand cuts.
Combat:
A)Inability to pan out(as far) with the camera in a tactical top-down view.
B)Combat is too fast to be tactical.
—Positioning no longer an issue.
>>>Mages seem more resistant to dmg, Bethany was getting ganged up by 3-4 darkspawn but took the dmg like a champ.
>>>Backstabbing is a new teleportation technique, apparently positioning one's rogue and actually inflicting what would logically be a back stab was too difficult to understand, so it was streamlined.
C)Enemies magically spawn out of thin air and come in manageable waves.
D)Attack animations
—Mages do some sort of contrived choreographed dance when attacking.
—Weapon+Sheild warriors/Aveline, her uninterrupted jerky stab motion was poorly concieved.
—2H warriors attacks are too fast to be plausible. As the interview pointed out, one of the great things about RPGs is that they often try to be believable. This sustained attack speed is not.
E)Corridor like/restrictive combat environments. Hopefully the main game has larger areas.
There's more I could rail on about, but I'm losing the energy to do so… I might post the rest of my criticism later.
-EDIT- Screw it
Another Problem the darkspawn, despite the new art direction, still all look the same… As if they're clones. Which might have been plausible if there were only one broodmother per the various species/races producing them. Then there's the armor, how is it that their armor is identical if the scavenge a good bit of it? Could Bioware not have added at least some variety?
The dialogue wheel is much like ME's where the input doesn't necessarily match the output(When my bro died I took the "He's not alone" or some such option and that translated to something along the lines of "Well at least dad has company now").
Flemeth and Isabella are far too different from the DA counterparts. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but you would expect Flemeth(and Isabella) to appear the same considering the events between the demo and DA:O overlap. Still at least you could argue for the Flemeth change up that she's a really advanced shape shifter, able to take the form of a busty firm bodied octogenarian.
Voiced protagonist, not a deal breaker… But IMO tends to be somewhat limiting when conceiving dialogue options.
New art direction is too cartoonish, IMO. It clashes with some of the story elements...
A lot of what I saw seemed kind of forced, story wise I mean... The sibling dying near the beginning evoked no real emotion because there was no attachment(honestly you just met this person). You're trying to escape the darkspawn but you have time to stop and chat?!? I'm sorry the demo just didn't work that well for me.
^ All the above is my own opinion... Nothing more or less.
