Bryant Hawke Lives

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That fight wasn't bad for me. The HIGH DRAGON is the one I hated the most. I had to turn the diificultly from Normal to Casual and even at that level my companions and my PC kept dying.

 

Didn't think the High Dragon was too hard. The key is to stack Fire resistance via runes and jewelry (unless you want to run around to avoid the fire balls when it's on the cliff - I know I'm too lazy for that ), and as soon as it flies up on the cliff, run to either of the two far sides, so you have all the dragons coming at you from one direction. You should have a mage with upgraded Chain Lightning - even if you only use one mage always take chain lightning and upgrade it imho - who should be able to make short process of the small dragons once your tank gets them gathered up nice and close (upgraded shield bash for stagger followed by (double) Chain Lightning), then focus down the big dragon(s).

If your tank is taking too much damage when fighting the high dragon, try and strafe around it. She will still hit you occasionally, but waste a lot of time on just moving around (although you're at risk of loosing aggro to your ranged people if you don't do enough damage). Also, I would only take ranged companions with me (preferably both Anders and Merril) unless you play a dw rogue yourself.

 

I did a lot of micro on this fight. I usually tried to run my guys out of the line of fire. I didn't have chain lightning or any lightning spells, so I guess the fight might have been easier with it.

I found it to be pretty hard, actually. It was one of the first things I did in Act III, so I'm sure that was part of the reason it was so difficult. But a little persistence paid off, and I got through it with no party member deaths on the third try.

 

On ground phases, i gave up on trying to hold aggro with Aveline. I just controlled Isabela and kept circling him. He can't even hit once you're out of a ridiculously narrow cone of attack, he'll beat his wings while jumping to turn, which is realistic i guess, for such a large creature, but it takes a hellova lot of time.More than it does for anyone to get out of his cone yet again by the time he's done turning.
It's cheesy tactics actually, though i didn't think of that 'till now.
Fire resistance helps a lot, especially since you don't really need all that much of it to get near immune to fire. I think it's 2 or 3 fire res gems in highest or near-highest gear (since they scale with item level).

 

That fight was the easiest boss fight in the game with a spirit healer PC or NPC mage and aoe heal spec.

When I attempted it the second run through with my mage I kept getting rocked (blood/Force), so I respecced blood to spirit and the fight was a bit of a joke .

 

That fight is annoying as hell, but then with my current party I'm pretty much set up to fail lol. Two rogues, Merrill and Aveline. And I'm too stubborn to want to swap out Isabel for Anders. The healer makes so much difference.

 

Well, runthrough number 2 is officially on hold due to Total War - Shogun 2. That is a bloody brilliant game, that I just can't seem to get out of my head.

At this point, it's likely that I won't come back to Dragon Age 2 until the first big DLC comes out (assuming the reviews are good).

I still hold that DA2 is a good game, but my enthusiasm has taken a hit as I've had time to fully digest how narrow its scope is compared to Origins. It's like someone bought a brand new, beautiful home. Everyone is envious of it! But when you go inside you see that most of it is sparsely furnished and some parts of the house still haven't been completed. It SHOULD be the most pimped out house around, but the buyer clearly ran out of money before arriving at that point.

A shame.

 

I'm starting to wonder if I should pick it up at all - at least not until it drops to the $20 range. It really seems like a big disappointment. I'd almost rather dive into Starcraft 2 and/or Portal 2.

I haven't had time to play a game of any kind in about 2 months (and I'm getting busier all the time), so I'm more concerned with sure things these days.

 

If you have reservations about Dragon Age 2, I found the single player campaign for StarCraft 2 to be absolutely fantastic. It's worth at least 2 full playthroughs.

Another game that is utterly awesome and addictive is Total War Shogun2, if you like the turn based strategy meets real time battles concept. It's the best in a long line of Total War games (Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon).

Dragon Age 2 is great in so many ways, but the reused levels ruin immersion and the specter of Origins ever haunts it. Seems like the sequel should have had a least as much content, as there was no engine to create this time around. Yeah, it's safe to say that I've grown accutely concerned that EA is going to murder Bioware. That said, I went into DA2 with an open mind and a positive attitude, and found many, many hours of enjoyment from it.

 

Pretty much what Marceror said. It's rushed, so a lot of things are reused. But everything that is in there already is extremely polished and well executed. So you get a very narrow scoped, but tightly focused game.

 

Steam got me with a 1-day 25% off special. So I caved. It's downloading now.

I am a weak, weak man.

Oh well. I may be weak but at least I have a toy. Besides, I've been itching to test-drive my new GPU with somethin' pretty to look at, and what better than those great big knockers on Isabe-... uh, KIRKWALL! Yes, Kirkwall, I meant Kirkwall. Totally. You know, like, on the gate. That's...yeah, totally. It has a gate, right? Yeah. That.

So...yeah. Um...(crap).

 

Congrats Death Rabbit. At this point, you know what you're going into. DA2 is NOT crap, but it's not Origins either. Have an open mind, and if you look for what's good about the game, rather than obsess about what could be better you should find that you gain many hours of enjoyment from DA2.

And no, I never tried to look at Isabella's boobs either, and definitely NEVER tried to look up the crack of her arse! I mean, I'm a married man... and she's just a computer generated woman... who's in no way real. I'm not a pervert... or anything. So please stop looking at me like that. Why god is everybody looking at my like that!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. I'm going to go do... something else now.

 

40 minutes in. Pretty fun so far, though I'm trying to get used to the new camera angles.

I don't know why the developers and reviewers went on and on about "improved graphics" and "edgy art style" or whatever. This is NOT a prettier game than Origins. If anything I think the characters look a little goofier, but that's me.

Not impressed so far, but I've barely given it a look. I'll have a better picture in a week or so.

 

Gave it another 2 hours last night. It's growing on me, but I do think overall the experience has been dumbed-down WAY too much. Most of the changes they've made aren't necessarily for the better. Still, I'm having fun.

Also, after downloading the high-res texture pack, the game does look pretty sweet.

 

So what's the verdict DR? Have you been sucked in enough that you expect you'll finish the game, or have you lost interest?

 

I just finished chapter 1 last night. Here are my thoughts.

Overall, it's definitely a fun game. The story is very good. And I like all of the companions; Bioware always does a great job with them. I am really enjoying playing. However, I see close to 0 replay value in it.

I'd heard that some maps were re-used here and there, but Jesus - EVERY cave is the same map, EVERY wilderness area is the same map, EVERY warehouse is the same map. Just sloppy, Bioware.

Which leads me to my next gripe: Darkspawn. Completely redesigning them was pointless. They look nothing like they used to. I know they play a much more limited role in DA:2, but that's all the more reason they shouldn't have been dicked with. They wasted development time on an unnecessary change while neglecting important and interesting things, like environments you don't have to re-use.

That said, the Qunari are GREATLY improved. Just outstanding. As is Flemeth, though I hope at some point they explain this rather drastic change in her appearance. At the moment it feels completely arbitrary.

I think the companion equipment setup is really stupid. Why my warrior Hawke can be wearing a suit of full plate that has an armor rating of 120, and Isabella wears a burlap sleeveless tunic with an armor rating of 178 makes absolutely no friggin' sense. And that armor rating GROWS BY LEAPS for no reason every time she levels...why? Is it MAGIC burlap? Ugh. I hate it when games insist that you turn your brain off and accept the unacceptable because they were too lazy to make a stylistic change make sense. And let's be honest - the companion outfits are nothing but style.

Combat is TOO fast. I know it's a video game, but I liked the way battles played out in DA:O. Your characters swung a sword at the speed a real human would swing a sword. It was nice, even if a little slow. In 2, my two-handed sword-wielding Hawke unleashes 5 swings with an enormous sword in less than a second. It's absurd. Even if you replaced the sword with a wooden yard stick it's still unrealistically fast. I hope in DA3 they find a happy medium here.

And the violence? It was PERFECT in DA:O. STUNNING battle animations. So pretty, so realistic, so visceral. Now? Critical hits explode enemies into a neatly stacked pile of body parts. Evidently when people get run through with a big sword, every joint in their body completely disconnects and the pieces fall to the ground like Jenga blocks. It looks like a death from a LEGO game, only with blood. And EVERY critical looks exactly the same. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID change.

The romances are a lot less believable and too dumbed down. One of the great things in past romances were that the options were unlocked in a series of conversations. It made it feel like you were really getting to know the person. Now it's one conversation with the little heart icon and you're in. Maybe this is just the case with Isabela, who's kind of a trollop...but still. Yawn.

Disappointed overall, but it is fun. We'll see how chapters 2 and 3 pan out. And GOOD GOD am I already sick of Kirkwall. Another reason I won't be replaying it.

 

This was my biggest gripe with this game. Just the same few maps re-cycled over and over again.

Yep this is pretty terrible. There is a mod somewhere on dragonagenexus (cannot remember what it is called) that removes the companion armour system and allow you to actually put armour/robes on your companions.

 

Your concerns are all reasonable DR, and I share all of them to varying degrees. That said, I managed to enjoy myself quite a lot for 1.5 playthroughs.

I really hope DA3 finds a happy medium between Origins and DA2. They really need to get closer to what they had in Origins with the next title.

 

DR you may have seen my post about the issues I have with DA2. The one thing I would not change that DA2 improved upon was the speed of combat. I would slow it down a bit but not down to the speed of DAO.

Besides what you said DR you may also dislike how the story unfolds. First off you only play the game actually for 3 years, year 1, 3 and 7. The others years are skipped – great marketing ploy to get people to play but only offering 3 years of actually playing the PC and the final year can be completed in about 2 hours. That said I don’t like how we only got 3 years out of a 10 year story that Bioware and EA was boasting when DA2 was in development.

Here are the things that drive me nuts and in the order of it driving me nuts…

1) Not being able to talk to companions when I want to
2) Companion being restricted to one armor – I like being able to change armor set or pieces on companions – they could have set the appearance so that it does not change even if you changed pieces or the full set
3) Weapon Restrictions – I like my strength based rogue to wield a sword and shield, but instead I am now stuck with two daggers or bow, etc…
4) Lack of armor sets – WTF is up with Bioware charging for armor sets that should have been included in the game to begin with – I bet that DLC was already completed and Bioware/EA held off until a month or so after DA2 release to bring in $$$$ for something that should be free
5) The story as mentioned above

Check out my post to see my other issues.

As for replay value it would depend how you view it. I am going to play DAO again with a human mage and free the circle from the Chantry control. Once I complete that play through I will complete DA2 one more time. I want to see if DAO choices made to better the circle impacts DA2 or even DA3.

I hope Bioware/EA comes out with DLC or one expansion covering years 2, 4-6, and/or 8-10. This would round off the game nicely and make it worth playing 1 more time.

For me, replay value right now is one more time; however, DLCs and an expansion could make it a 3rd play through.

 

The more I think about it, the more I'm glad I didn't have to manage my NPC's, because that is a massive waste of time. If they had allowed it, the playtime for the game would probably have doubled, because you have to examine every piece of gear that drops, against every character you have. If an NPC can do it for themselves, it not only makes it more fun for me to avoid it, but better RP-wise since I would never let you dress me .