Drakensang The more I play the more disappointed I get

Damian Mahadevan · March 11, 2009

RivianWitch said:
I think you have totally the wrong end of the stick with a few things there.
Firstly, the quest you are referring to there, "Blue Eyes" is completely a side quest which you don't have to do at all. Secondly, the "good" ending there, comes not because of sleeping with the vampires, but with not killing them. You can actually still get a "good" ending with that quest, without actually sleeping with the vampires, as long as you choose the blue-eyed girl's side against her brother.
The worst ending is killing the vampires and letting the brother take the girl.

All that the game is trying to say there, is that what makes someone a monster, is not what he/she looks like on the outside but what he she is by nature, which is a strong theme in the books, and is also echoed when you have to decide whether to kill Vincent or not (a point you might not even have reached yet, seeing as you are still so early in the game). In fact, you are still so early in the game, that you have not really started seeing the consequences of your choices yet. I really can't see how you can make such sweeping statements about a game you have not played yet.

Let me use an earlier choice in the game as an example: the choice between whether you let Abigail live or not. This has NOTHING to do with whether you sleep with her or not. You can sleep with her and let her die, or not sleep with her and choose to have the mob kill her, or vice versa; - the one choice does not influence the other choice, so I totally disagree with your statement that the "sleeping with the woman choice" is ever the right or wrong choice.
The consequences do not come from whether you sleep with them or not - that aspect is totally irrelevant to the rest of the game, but from whether you choose to let people/"monsters" live or die.

The only "sex"/romance choice that has any bearing later on in the game, is whether you choose Triss or Shani, and that does not influence the outcome of the game, it only influences which one will act as your companion.

I see. Maybe one of these days i will give the witcher another go.

Dhruin · March 12, 2009

Good heavens, you've barely played it. The sex cards are silly but they simply don't impact the rest of the narrative. Anyway, back to the DraSa...

Damian Mahadevan · March 12, 2009

I didnt mean that i had to get the sex cards, rather that the path you take in trying to get the sex cards gives the best ending. Even if you choose not to get them. Is there even one ending where you get the better ending where you dont try to favour the girl?

Dasale · March 12, 2009

Alrik Fassbauer said:
Where does the name come from, then ?

From the inspiration of P&P that is the origin of CRPG. Alas unlike in P&P there's no human master to make it more than a game, ie to allow a bit of real role playing.

Just look 1st CRPGs it's just an attempt to implement base mechanism, classes, fights, dungeons, nothing more and that's not role playing. As CRPG became more modern they add more story but not role playing.

Dasale · March 12, 2009

wolfing said:
Not all cRPGs are like that though, the RPGs that are usually considered the best are the ones in which you can actually assume the role of a specific character, and the game allows you to make decisions close to what you would have done in a PnP (pen and paper) situation.

It's quite fake because choices are too limited and don't let place for role playing, and that's quite different with a good P&P human master.

Thoth · March 12, 2009

Dasale said:
It's quite fake because choices are too limited and don't let place for role playing, and that's quite different with a good P&P human master.

Yeah, it would take quite the dedicated developer to try and come up with the multitude of choices different players would make. I suppose CRPGs will ever come close to the old pen and paper human game master.

Dasale · March 12, 2009

RivianWitch said:
I have exact control over even the weapons my party members are going to use with every turn, who they are going to attack, using which spell/weapon/special ability. How more tactical can it get? The only single thing I cannot change or control in mid-combat, is the armour they wear; - otherwise I can control their every single movement.

You should play a real TB game like Temple of Elemental Evil, each step and action point is or can be carefully balanced.

I didn't wrote Drakensang wasn't tactical, but less than a true TB because you don't have a precise control on movements and in fact it's even hard to predict.

For example you attack a monster from one side but the PC decide to go to the other side and then attract something you didn't want.

Dasale · March 12, 2009

RivianWitch said:
Oh, and do you truly think that the AI is good in NWN2?

You can really let magic users do a good job (when your could be excellent) and the setup of the different level of magic use (with more or less spare) allows lower the sparing for a special fight and higher it for more casual occasion. You still have to choose by yourself what spells they'll memorize and there's certainly some that the AI won't use well.

The point is I never seen any better in any CRPG.

Dasale · March 12, 2009

vanedor said:
Anyways, you play a role. Sure, it's not PnP but unless it's an action rpg, you still usually have moral/strategic decisions to take and you are able to put yourself in the skin of someone else, be it an elven maid or an evil necromancer.

The good affair! That's just boring role playing because the computer don't let you enough options. At best you fit to a planned role, not fun. No surprise most players don't even attempt it and play their own role ie do morale or greedy choices how they feel it not to play a role.

vanedor · March 12, 2009

It let you play a certain number of options. Be it enough or not, it's just a matter of personnal taste. Sure, the guy who want to play a childrens killer Ranger of Baal might find it difficult...

RivianWitch · March 12, 2009

Dasale said:
You should play a real TB game like Temple of Elemental Evil, each step and action point is or can be carefully balanced.

I didn't wrote Drakensang wasn't tactical, but less than a true TB because you don't have a precise control on movements and in fact it's even hard to predict.

For example you attack a monster from one side but the PC decide to go to the other side and then attract something you didn't want.

I played Temple of Elemental Evil for a tiny bit a longish time ago, but I think I got distracted by other games, and never really got into the game enough to really do much combat. Once I've tired of Drakensang I'll re-install TOEE and have a look, to understand exactly what you prefer. I suppose if you want it to be as precise as exactly which bodypart (a la Fallout 3 ) , and from which angle you want to attack, then Drakensang isn't quite that precise..... But most of the TB games I've played (granted, not all that many) aren't quite that precise either.

I'll check out TOEE, though.

RivianWitch · March 12, 2009

Damian Mahadevan said:
I didnt mean that i had to get the sex cards, rather that the path you take in trying to get the sex cards gives the best ending. Even if you choose not to get them. Is there even one ending where you get the better ending where you dont try to favour the girl?

I moved this discussion to the Witcher board, and replied under "Sex card criticism" thread.

Alrik Fassbauer · March 12, 2009

Personally, i wasn't that happy with the turn-based approach in Drakensang. After a few tries I gave up, because it simply didn't satisfy me. Plus, it was so much different to me (matter of taste ?) than the old ROA games (and TOEE as well, by the way).

Therefore I only played real-time, with using the pause only to give the cvharacters potions or change weapons or spells or so.

Curunír · March 12, 2009

Alrik Fassbauer said:
Personally, i wasn't that happy with the turn-based approach in Drakensang. After a few tries I gave up, because it simply didn't satisfy me. Plus, it was so much different to me (matter of taste ?) than the old ROA games (and TOEE as well, by the way).

Therefore I only played real-time, with using the pause only to give the cvharacters potions or change weapons or spells or so.

Well, I basically like Drakensang's implementation of RTwP, although it has a few significant problems:

1. Movement, which doesn't work too well in Auto-Pause every round mode.
2. Most combats (the filler ones) don't provide the challenge to let the system shine, they really need difficulty levels for the next game.
3. It will take you a lot of time, if you (like me) fight every fight in round mode, combined with point 2 that isn't necessarily a good thing.

That lead me to the opinion that Drakensang requires significantly less but harder battles to be a real enjoyment for tactical players.
Oh, and there is simply too much alchemy stuff. I usually play with the house rule "avoid potions at all cost" to keep the game challenging. But then fights like that against Kastan (non-sneaking variant) or the necromancer really require careful thought and are real fun.

Grandor Dragon · March 12, 2009

I did the same thing. I am absolutely pleased with turn-based real-time with pause.

Turjan · March 12, 2009

Alrik mentioned further above something about why he thinks Germans have so many criticisms regarding Drakensang. Of the cases I know, those people mainly criticize the game because it doesn't really follow proper TDE (DSA) rules. As the latter are mostly unknown outside of Germany, this part of the criticism will lack there. You can't complain that the game doesn't capture the feel of DSA if you don't know it

. I see this as an advantage in my case: I can play without that baggage.

I'm still in the middle of the game, so I won't give any final verdict about it. Up to now, my biggest complaint about the combat system is that the AI always gangs up on your weakest character first and does so by running through your melee fighters. Through! Those are the moments where I could kick the game.

I knew it would be a railroad from reviews, so there's no disappointed expectation in this regard.

Dasale · March 12, 2009

RivianWitch said:
I played Temple of Elemental Evil for a tiny bit a longish time ago, but I think I got distracted by other games, and never really got into the game enough to really do much combat. Once I've tired of Drakensang I'll re-install TOEE and have a look, to understand exactly what you prefer.

You are jumping quite fast to conclusion, I just wrote true TB like ToEE was more tactical than the mixed system in Drakensang. :biggrin:

I think both system can work and have its own plus but are both highly dependent of the tuned design of each fight and of the difficulty level setup.

RivianWitch said:
I suppose if you want it to be as precise as exactly which bodypart (a la Fallout 3 ) , and from which angle you want to attack, then Drakensang isn't quite that precise..... But most of the TB games I've played (granted, not all that many) aren't quite that precise either.

No ToEE isn't like that, well I don't remember that at least.

Let me give one example: @ is the PC/NPC I control, C are companions, M and N are the ugly monsters:

Code:

    C                  N
 @   M                 N
    C                  N

Then I decide going to close attack M with P and I expect:

Code:

    C                  N
    @M                 N
    C                  N

But instead because the game compute that' there's not enough place or something I get instead:

Code:

    C                  N
     M@                 N
    C                  N

That is then too close to N monsters and then I get this garbage:

Code:

    C N
     M@N
    C N

That's one example, I could provide other where you get only vague control of your movements.

RivianWitch · March 12, 2009

Heh, cleverly done diagrams Dasale.

Hm, so I think what you are saying, is that the movement seems to be too random, especially from the enemies side? Ok, well maybe it doesn't bother me quite that much because I tend to play action Rpg's at times, an there its usually just a mixed-up mobfest.

But, on the other hand, I rather enjoy turn-based Strategy games. If you haven't tried out King's Bounty yet, I think you might just enjoy it. It's the typical grid-based TB combat, but there's supposed to be RPG elements as well. I started it a while back, but Drakensang came out in the meantime...

In any case, of course in that kiind of game you get to control your own, and premeditate the enemies' exact positions in advance.

Turjan · March 12, 2009

RivianWitch said:
Hm, so I think what you are saying, is that the movement seems to be too random, especially from the enemies side? .

The diagram is good, but I want to add that the movement is not random. The more intelligent monsters will always gang up on the character with the lowest defense values first. You don't even have to look at your character sheet: Just look at the sequence in which the monsters eliminate your characters. The annoying point is that you have no means whatsoever to prevent this. The tanks cannot block the monsters from surrounding the mage or rogue.

vanedor · March 12, 2009

Turjan said:
Up to now, my biggest complain about the combat system is that the AI always gangs up on your weakest character first and does so by running through your melee fighters. Through! Those are the moments where I could kick the game.

I cannot agree more!

Drakensang The more I play the more disappointed I get

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