Late to the Party: My Review of Dragon Age: Origins

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
32,646
11,791
136
Cliffs are at the bottom - I have a huge gripe section.

Dragon Age Origins was billed as the spiritual successor to the widely lauded Baldur's Gate 2, arguably a masterpiece in PC RPGs; one of the, if not the, best RPG to grace the computer.

Dragon Age does an admirable job of trying to recreate the party-oriented RPG glory of BG2, but falls short. I'm not going to rip on the story (it's rather generic, but has some highlights), or the characters (only a few I actually cared about). I'm going to address it virtually all from gameplay and combat. Here's why DA:O isn't as could as it could have been:


The good:
visceral combat, decent spell/specialization selection, a fair amount of dialogue options and party interaction. Despite the total number of NPC's being relatively small, some of them are quite good. I really liked Alistair, and was very sad when he got pissed off at me (on the flip side, you can give gifts which will basically undo all the negative influence you have with party members, if you have enough of them).

The bad:
The most grievous offender is the AI. Bioware tried implementing a tactics system that way the AI could use abilities intelligently. Unfortunately, by default the AI will waste your party members abilities on enemies undeserving of the mana/stamina required for that spell. So, you might think that manual mode (which is how I play BG2) would be the proper alternative. And you'd be wrong. So very, very wrong. The manual AI is the terrible. Party members will fail to defend themselves, and stop attacking during the middle of a fight. This is particularly true when stuns and knockdowns occur. This makes efficient combat goddamn near impossible. I don't mind getting my ass kicked by powerful enemies (lich-guys are tough till you level up a bunch), but when my characters act like retards, I can't help but want to punch my monitor.

Which reminds me of something else... about to get ambushed and have the game paused? Better unpause/pause very quickly, because unless your characters have their weapons drawn, they will ignore your commands once they see enemies (in order to draw their weapons). Yes, that's right - all that great tactical planning you had of using your AOE spells and stuns in combination with each other just went to shit because you activated some enemies. Cmon bioware, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

And my next point: the number of stuns and knockdowns available to enemies seems to far outweigh the number available to you. I was ambushed by a pack of wolves at level 15. Easy, I thought. They're wolves. No - every party member was quickly beset by the "overwhelm" skill, which is an automatic stun/knockdown with guaranteed damage. My party was quickly wiped out, to my dismay. The worst offender? A spider boss in the dwarven caves that has a large AOE stun. He also calls down buddy spiders who have nasty ranged attacks, so you get raped very easily.
I also particularly hated crushing prison - a stun spell that does DoT, and curse of mortality - a DoT that prevents healing. Both last for ~20s. 20s!!!
Even the knockback with fireball wasn't nearly as annoying.

Now if all that weren't enough, the slow mo sections will also get you killed. Finishes moves are cool. Finishing moves that do not grant invulnerability while there's an army of archers in front of you are not cool. My main character died several times to this.

Here's another thing - don't bother using 2 handed weapons for a warrior. You're far better off doing sword/shield - you get just as many stuns and knockbacks, you have better defense, and you only do marginally, marginally less DPS. The character Alistair (designed for sword/shield) was infinitely better than my warrior (2 handed) in basically every respect, despite me being built to dish out stupid amounts of damage. And yes, I even last Alistair tank when possible. I missed my attacks anyway.

Another thing that will make/break the game quite easily, I felt, is the order in which you attain your party members. I happened to get the offensive mage first. That's great, but had I known that getting the healer at level 17 would prevent me from selecting her skills and spells, I certainly would have gotten the healer first to maximize her healing abilities (and give her some AOE attacks too).

And the final massive annoyance - camera angles. Don't bother trying to fight up a hill. You will die because you can't select anything. The camera also jumps around when you are close in, which makes coordinating combat more difficult than it needs to be.

I've written quite a lot of bad, but DA:O is actually a pretty good game. It's just plagued by piss-poor (IMO) AI, some balance issues, and a camera that desperately needs fixing (dear bioware, you guys changed the camera in NWN2, did you forget how to make it work in DA:O?)

Despite all my bitching and moaning, Dragon Age gets a B-. The gripes I have aren't enough to warrant a C - it's definitely above average, but there are too many things that prevent it from being a truly great game. It's a shame that the AI is really more of a hindrance than help, because all the AI fixes alone would probably take DA:O to a B+/A game quite easily.



Cliffs:
1) combat is fun, but the AI is atrocious and makes fights harder than necessary. not just in 1 way, but multiple.

2) there seem to be too many stuns available to enemies and not enough counters to them

3) the camera is a pain in the ass

4) despite my huge section of bad, DA:O gets a B-. It's above average, but the AI really kills the game for me. Hopefully Bioware will address these issues in DA:O2.
 

JoshGuru7

Golden Member
Aug 18, 2001
1,020
0
0
I know the tactics system takes some effort to figure out and get set up correctly, but it's a lot better than you portray here. With some tweaking I was able to get very solid tactics rotations for a sword and board tank, a momentum rogue, a crowd control mage, a healing mage, and an archer/controller rogue. If you google it you'll find rotations for these posted online to get you started. AoE DPS magic was the only real role I ended up needing to handle myself, and that was done by assigning the mage to a controller type role and then switching to manually cast AoE DPS when needed.

I also don't get the complaints about the computer using crowd control. Sure it can add some difficulty, but learning how to counteract it is part of what makes games like that fun (and you can counteract it, there's a reason why your big dumb warrior constantly falls victim to crushing prison). Mages are powerful in this game and that gives you an incentive to get to the enemy mage fast, either crowd controlling it or outright killing it. My favorite strategy involves a momentum rogue but there a lot of ways to solve that particular problem in this game.
 

Udgnim

Diamond Member
Apr 16, 2008
3,669
114
106
haven't played the game in a while but you can customize the AI a bit

there are also multiple camera angles that you can use

my complaint about the game was that the power and utility difference between classes were huge. 1 mage made things a lot easier. 2 mages made things cake.
 
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Rhoxed

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2007
1,051
3
81
I just couldn't get into this one, played for about 8 hours, and never picked it back up. Found Risen to be more fun at the time.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
Don't feel bad. I played it for about 20 hours, then put it away. Still on my machine, but I'm thinking of selling my entire EA account.
 

oddyager

Diamond Member
May 21, 2005
3,398
0
76
The AI is pretty poor but the fact some of the abilities you have access to are borderline cheesy and being able to "cast" through a wall doesn't help. Since most of the combat involved choke points a mage could throw down that bouncy barrier in a narrow passage then land all 3 AOE spells and watch enemies continuously bounce off the barrier and die in the spells. Just an example of one.
 

Liet

Golden Member
Jun 9, 2001
1,529
0
0
Yep, the AI was silly. Unfortunately, early on you really need to worry about tactics in order to win fights. Later on, however, your character can become a one-man powerhouse and snicker at the puny dps your allies dish out. Note: I played a duel-wield momentum warrior, emphasis on dexterity. My guy was sometimes a better tank than Alistair, because he just couldn't be hit by most enemies and was simultaneously slicing through them faster than anyone else. Momentum + haste is bruuuuuutal.

I find it's one of those games where you need to put up with some silliness to get to the main attraction: storyline. The voice acting was surprisingly good (Morrigan voice actress Claudia Black, you get +50 points for awesome inflection), though the storyline & universe never felt fully formed. As an example, the dwarven storyline in particular was ultra boring, and wandering through the supposedly mysterious and ancient Deep Roads felt like a stroll down Broadway here in NYC - not engaging, mysterious, interesting, or holding anything that made me say "Wow, that's a really powerful story element".

Aaaaanyway. Good game, story/universe felt dumbed-down for the console crowd.
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
I know the tactics system takes some effort to figure out and get set up correctly, but it's a lot better than you portray here. With some tweaking I was able to get very solid tactics rotations for a sword and board tank, a momentum rogue, a crowd control mage, a healing mage, and an archer/controller rogue. If you google it you'll find rotations for these posted online to get you started. AoE DPS magic was the only real role I ended up needing to handle myself, and that was done by assigning the mage to a controller type role and then switching to manually cast AoE DPS when needed.

I also don't get the complaints about the computer using crowd control. Sure it can add some difficulty, but learning how to counteract it is part of what makes games like that fun (and you can counteract it, there's a reason why your big dumb warrior constantly falls victim to crushing prison). Mages are powerful in this game and that gives you an incentive to get to the enemy mage fast, either crowd controlling it or outright killing it. My favorite strategy involves a momentum rogue but there a lot of ways to solve that particular problem in this game.

Yea Crushing prison the mage or better yet, Mana Clash and then the battle is automatically over.

DA is ridiculously easy if you know how to set up Tactics.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoR22bXZqn8

Naked combatants. Nightmare Difficulty. Walk away from computer and let the AI handle the dragon.

I did this myself actually without being naked. It was quite amusing.
 

KIAman

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2001
3,342
23
81
Yep, the AI was silly. Unfortunately, early on you really need to worry about tactics in order to win fights. Later on, however, your character can become a one-man powerhouse and snicker at the puny dps your allies dish out. Note: I played a duel-wield momentum warrior, emphasis on dexterity. My guy was sometimes a better tank than Alistair, because he just couldn't be hit by most enemies and was simultaneously slicing through them faster than anyone else. Momentum + haste is bruuuuuutal.

Strange, momentum never stacked with haste for me, it would actually make my attack speed slow.

Also, the tactics were very powerful, IMO. You can custimize it to the tiniest details and as long as you understood the order of operations (pretty much sequential), then it becomes very easy to do things like insta stun (or kill for an archer) the enemy mage or self POT when half health or have alistair AOE taunt and stun to gather more aggro.

I understand about the enemy stuns and such but you don't have to have your group stand there and take it all. For example, the spider queen boss just needs everyone to stand away and she CAN BE CC'D to death.

Finally, one of the patches fixed the issue when you pick a character up later in the game and the ability to custimize their skills and stats so patch it up. This allows a blank slate that is 1 level higher than when you picked them up and you get to choose all your skills and stats. Besides, Wynn, doesn't HAVE to be the healer, you can skill up Morrigan that way too, it's just that influence increases Wynn's healing ability while Morrigan gets more damage.

Also, did you ever get influence high enough from Zevran to learn assassin? You get this "kill boss" skill that allows the entire group to do massive damage to your selected target. Makes bosses... really easy.
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
Strange, momentum never stacked with haste for me, it would actually make my attack speed slow.

Also, the tactics were very powerful, IMO. You can custimize it to the tiniest details and as long as you understood the order of operations (pretty much sequential), then it becomes very easy to do things like insta stun (or kill for an archer) the enemy mage or self POT when half health or have alistair AOE taunt and stun to gather more aggro.

I understand about the enemy stuns and such but you don't have to have your group stand there and take it all. For example, the spider queen boss just needs everyone to stand away and she CAN BE CC'D to death.

Finally, one of the patches fixed the issue when you pick a character up later in the game and the ability to custimize their skills and stats so patch it up. This allows a blank slate that is 1 level higher than when you picked them up and you get to choose all your skills and stats. Besides, Wynn, doesn't HAVE to be the healer, you can skill up Morrigan that way too, it's just that influence increases Wynn's healing ability while Morrigan gets more damage.

Also, did you ever get influence high enough from Zevran to learn assassin? You get this "kill boss" skill that allows the entire group to do massive damage to your selected target. Makes bosses... really easy.

Isn't that what Death Hex is..
 

coldmeat

Diamond Member
Jul 10, 2007
9,215
112
106
I just played the game on easy and let my team mates do whatever their original tactics said. Playing in real time and really only controlling 1 character was more fun for me.
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
I just played the game on easy and let my team mates do whatever their original tactics said. Playing in real time and really only controlling 1 character was more fun for me.

Hah, I never play any game unless it's on its hardest difficulty.

You can play through the whole game on Nightmare without any teammates without much trouble. It gets more dull though.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
32,646
11,791
136
Strange, momentum never stacked with haste for me, it would actually make my attack speed slow.

Also, the tactics were very powerful, IMO. You can custimize it to the tiniest details and as long as you understood the order of operations (pretty much sequential), then it becomes very easy to do things like insta stun (or kill for an archer) the enemy mage or self POT when half health or have alistair AOE taunt and stun to gather more aggro.

I understand about the enemy stuns and such but you don't have to have your group stand there and take it all. For example, the spider queen boss just needs everyone to stand away and she CAN BE CC'D to death.

Finally, one of the patches fixed the issue when you pick a character up later in the game and the ability to custimize their skills and stats so patch it up. This allows a blank slate that is 1 level higher than when you picked them up and you get to choose all your skills and stats. Besides, Wynn, doesn't HAVE to be the healer, you can skill up Morrigan that way too, it's just that influence increases Wynn's healing ability while Morrigan gets more damage.

Also, did you ever get influence high enough from Zevran to learn assassin? You get this "kill boss" skill that allows the entire group to do massive damage to your selected target. Makes bosses... really easy.

zevran ended up leaving my party since i didn't build enough influence with him, which is a shame because i liked him.
 

Looney

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
21,938
5
0
The tactics system is one of the best part of this game IMO. On hard, i almost never have to take control of the other party members. On nightmare it's a different story, at least in the beginning, but the tactics system is awesome. I just wished they would increase the number of tactics slots (doubling it would be good number imo).

As for being knocked down by wolves... um ya, they have that ability. So if you're fighting a pack of wolves, obviously there's a chance that you're going to be overwelmed a lot. This is where player strategies comes in.

Everything else about your post is pretty much just whining. They're not shortcomings, they're just the way bioware wanted you to play the game. Did you really need to make a new post on this 'review'?
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,379
126
Don't feel bad. I played it for about 20 hours, then put it away. Still on my machine, but I'm thinking of selling my entire EA account.

Same here, I really wanted to like it, I'd been waiting for a good medieval/fantasy action RPG, but I guess my expectations were just way different than what this game was really about. I can tell some time and effort went into it, but it's not for me. It was $$$ for a PC game too :(
 

DefDC

Golden Member
Aug 28, 2003
1,858
1
81
Hmmm.. Turned off tactics because they've always seemed to be an abortion in every other game. Maybe I'll have have to give 'em a try now that I'm playing DA:A.
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
The tactics system is one of the best part of this game IMO. On hard, i almost never have to take control of the other party members. On nightmare it's a different story, at least in the beginning, but the tactics system is awesome. I just wished they would increase the number of tactics slots (doubling it would be good number imo).

As for being knocked down by wolves... um ya, they have that ability. So if you're fighting a pack of wolves, obviously there's a chance that you're going to be overwelmed a lot. This is where player strategies comes in.

Everything else about your post is pretty much just whining. They're not shortcomings, they're just the way bioware wanted you to play the game. Did you really need to make a new post on this 'review'?

Wolves are easy. You just cast an AOE and kill all the wolves (and your own party). Or just have Shale use one of her ridiculously overpowered abilities, which also tend to kill your own party members.
 

Liet

Golden Member
Jun 9, 2001
1,529
0
0
Do they ever actually SAY that Shale is a female?

I remember getting this list of dwarves-turned-into-golems after that dwarven boss battle, but all I could do was turn it in to the librarian dude. I brought Shale to the library, but no new dialogue came up. Did I need to have Shale in the boss battle? It seemed idiotic that I could find out all about these golems, and not discuss Shale's history with him/her
 
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MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
Do they ever actually SAY that Shale is a female?

I remember getting this list of dwarves-turned-into-golems after that dwarven boss battle, but all I could do was turn it in to the librarian dude. I brought Shale to the library, but no new dialogue came up. Did I need to have Shale in the boss battle? It seemed idiotic that I could find out all about these golems, and not discuss Shale's history with him/her

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yes her whole personal quest revolves around finding out (or rather confirming what Caridin already tells her) about her own bearded dwarven feminine side. And then you can make fun of her being a girl.