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Why can't I get into Dragon Age?
Stellos
Member UncommonPosts: 1,491
I bought DA for PC and it's just no fun for me to play even though I love RPGs. What's going on? It has fantastic reviews. I think I know the reason. I just can't take anymore quest based games. I'm so sick of buidling up 1,000 quests in my journal and having to run from point to point and talk to people and fight people. I find it so tedious and boring. It sucks because this trend has really taken over the RPG genere and I absolutely HATE it. It didn't use to be like this. There never were quests in early RPGs that I loved. Can't we get back to just having a kick ass game without quests. It's like the developers are all stuck in the WoW mindset. 
I've gotten away from the Final Fantasy games because they were over the top for me, but I'm looking at the trailers for FF13 and it looks interesting. Does anyone know if this is going to be quest based?
Remember FF3 where you could just go do whatever and stick to the story when you felt like it. I like having side stories, but it is an insult to me that they have to be in my journal and have big exclaimation marks over areas where I need to go. It's like they took all the thinking out of the RPG genere. Anyone else feel the same way?
Comments
I just hate the fact that, all these years after Super Mario, and we're still spending most of our time collecting shit, either its stars, coins, quests, whatever. I want games that play like shadow of the colossus.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Dragon Age plays much closer to Baldur's Gate than WoW. This is not to say that some mmo concepts haven't crept in but there is nothing really new in Dragon Age when you look back at Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter nights.
You make the comment that "it didn't use to be like this". Given the genre that my above mentioned games fall in, perhaps you could list the games you are thinking of as I don't know of any role play games that didn't have quests.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The ending is a text screen, don't bother playing it.
Sucks i spent 20$ on this.
Inherited Will, the Destiny of the Age, and the Dreams of its People. These are things that will not be stopped. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to be! - Gol D. Roger
The ending is not a text screen. The epilogue is a text screen. An epilogue is not an ending as it deals with added info pertaining to the characters.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Old games like FF3 are just lightly disguised grinds... You read a tidbit of story and are told where to go next. You either go there and do it, or you go grind and get stronger so that it will be easier when you eventually get there. Then, you get to that next point, rinse and repeat. It goes something like:
Level up --> Fight stronger mobs --> Level up --> Fight stronger mobs --> REPEAT 100 times --> Fight slightly larger "boss" mob --> watch credits --> start over
I'm not saying the quest model is great. I'm just saying that you should take off your rose colored glasses. The change is in YOU, not in the games. You've grown up, you've seen it all before ... games will never be as shiny as they once were. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
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Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
Currently - Bored.
Sometimes you just can't get into a game, it happens. Morrowind and Oblivion were great games, but I couldn't get into those. EVE Online is a very good mmo, well done for what it does, but I can't get into that game. Just because it doesn't hold your attention for whatever reason doesn't it mean it's not quality.
My problem with Dragon Age wasn't necessarily the quests, it was the gameplay. Perhaps I just picked the wrong class, but I couldn't find a happy medium between difficulty and micro-managing. At the harder levels, you've got to pause and micromanage a lot. I hate this type of gameplay. I enjoy more real time strategy, which is difficult to do trying to control an entire team, even when you've tweaked the macros a lot. And at the easier levels, it was just too easy and the real time action isn't the greatest. So DA just ended up not being quite for me.
i don't want to micro manage attacks in a system like DA so i stopped the game rather quickly.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
In some ways you hit the nail on the head for me.
I loved DA but I played it for the story. However, I hate micromanaging my party. True, the system they have is not bad but there were times I'd look over and one of my guys was just standing there. Or I would have it so that a character should do a certain thing such as take a mana potion but for some reason they just wouldn't.
I ended up playing on Normal or easy mode so I could have fluid combat. I'm on my 5th character and am eagerly awaiting the expansion but for plaeyers who are looking for oblvioin or dark messiah, they just aren't going to find it here.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Many like the tactical "turn-based" squad combat. I rather enjoyed it in Dragon Age Origins, but remember that I did enjoy it more in Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Night and original Fallout games. Another game with a good turn-based system was Jagged Alliance. I think Bioware has intentionally made the easy mode so easy that you do not need to worry about micromanaging your party that much, but can focus on the story. The challenge is there for those who seek it. I think the system serves pretty well, albeit the normal mode was a bit too hard after the launch, but they nerfed it.
The weakest aspect in Dragon Age: Origins was the story. While it was detailed, it was also rather bland. I liked the story in Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nightss much more. Bioware could have done so much more with this game, but went with a too generic fantasy world in my opinion. It lacked immersion and did not manage feel alive or breath that well. The main villain was a faceless evil, which did not seem to have a motive or manage to pulse with dread.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
You're not the only one. I SO wanted to love DA:Origins. It all started out so promisingly; great characters, voice acting, story and environments, but underneath the shiny exterior its just the same old mechanics. It was the same with Mass Effect 2: brilliant RPG elements but the Horizon scenario had me pulling my hair out (I've come to conclusion I despise FPS') and I thought "do I really want to be playing a game that makes me this frustrated?"
After almost 20 years of gaming, I've experienced almost every gaming convention and genre in existance which is why when new games come out, I tend to be tired of them before I even start - unless they do something truly revolutionary. I think this is true of a lot of older gamers, and most evident where MMO's are concerned due to their nature of 'carrot-on-a-stick' gameplay which has been done to death.
We expect so much from games nowadays simply because the room for innovation has become so small. Everything seems to be either a re-hash of an existing theme or a mixture of several different ones. Thankfully, with the advent of the internet, the bedroom coder is making a comeback which can only be a good thing to keep the industry from stagnating and homogenizing in the hands of the... <cue sinister music> EVIL CORPORATIONS!!1
Same here, for the most part. I liked the story and characters, but the combat was just horrid, with squad AI pretty much nonexistent (oh look, Alistair's running across the room aggroing everything to get to one enemy he arbitrarily decided to fight again). I don't regret buying it, but I honestly don't see myself plunking down cash for the expansion either.
FYI I'm on the Xbox 360 version. I'm willing to bet the PC version would alleviate most of my problems (micromanagement on a console is an exercise in futility and frustration. Believe me, I tried) since it has a tactical view and pause features. Unfortunately, my current PC is coal powered, so I have no hope of running it.
In short, you're not the only one. I think it's pretty good, but nowhere near the second coming of BG2 everyone is making it out to be.
ME2 on the other hand... *falls down and worships*
Dragon Age plays much closer to Baldur's Gate than WoW. This is not to say that some mmo concepts haven't crept in but there is nothing really new in Dragon Age when you look back at Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter nights.
You make the comment that "it didn't use to be like this". Given the genre that my above mentioned games fall in, perhaps you could list the games you are thinking of as I don't know of any role play games that didn't have quests.
Here's some that I loved playing years ago, some are much older than others.
Final Fantasy 1 and 3 SNES, Chrono Trigger SNES, Secret of Mana SNES, Zelda 1 and 2 NES, Zelda SNES, Ultima Exodus NES, Ultima 8 PC, KOTOR 1 and 2. Now there are plenty of other RPGs I enjoyed such as Oblivion, Fable 1 and 2, and multiple MMORPGs, but I don't like it when I feel like the quests get piled up and I have tons of work to do. For example I don't like turning quests down because I feel like you waste out on aspects of the game, so I always accept. By doing this I accumulate so many quests that I can't keep them straight and the story just doesn't mesh well anymore. I don't mind quests, but I'd much rather just have one quest line with nothing but "sandbox" for filler, as seen in a lot of previous RPGs.
You are right. I actually enjoy the grind style compared to quest upon quest though. I've tried multiple times to pick DA back up, but it keeps coming down to fact I have nothign but meaningless quests that take loading screens to complete and I just get sick of it. I'm not a fan of the micromanaging combat system, but I'd much rather be in combat leveling then running around through loading screens to level.
In some ways you hit the nail on the head for me.
I loved DA but I played it for the story. However, I hate micromanaging my party. True, the system they have is not bad but there were times I'd look over and one of my guys was just standing there. Or I would have it so that a character should do a certain thing such as take a mana potion but for some reason they just wouldn't.
I ended up playing on Normal or easy mode so I could have fluid combat. I'm on my 5th character and am eagerly awaiting the expansion but for plaeyers who are looking for oblvioin or dark messiah, they just aren't going to find it here.
I think the only crowd that will enjoy DA are those that played baldur's gate and NWN , i know i enjoyed DA playing on hard and my characters did what i scripted them to do using the tactics window the right way , it's not a action rpg and on the PC it's way harder it's the one i have anyways .
I know alot of friends hated the game i think they expected something else i know i enjoyed the story and the chracters just like am adoring mass effect2 , bioware just knows how to please me in gaming .
You are right. I actually enjoy the grind style compared to quest upon quest though. I've tried multiple times to pick DA back up, but it keeps coming down to fact I have nothign but meaningless quests that take loading screens to complete and I just get sick of it. I'm not a fan of the micromanaging combat system, but I'd much rather be in combat leveling then running around through loading screens to level.
but you don't have to consciously level in DA.
Just play through the main quest line and you will be fine.
There are a whole bunch of quests that I never did in DA. Some for RP reasons (like the whole stealing thing or the thief quests) and some because they just were silly or didn't interest me.
All a player ever has to do is he main quest if he or she wants. The leveling will just come.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I tried it for a few days at a friends house. I couldn;t get into it either. It felt too grindy, like World of Warcraft.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I didn't like DA:O either.
It felt too passive and well... bland. The story felt too predictable, not to mention I just plain didn't like the new setting they created.
The combat pretty much boiled down to having the most casters and endlessly spamming cone of cold and other incapacitation abilities. Of course, the few times when you fought large groups of caster enemies, you felt like throwing your monitor out the window...
The gear and skill system also felt too simplistic and boring. There was rarely any thought in what skills and attributes you pumped up.
Unfortunately, what has happened to DA:O, is that it was console-ized. They dumbed it down for the console market. Now I don't mean to insult everyone that plays console... it's just that the average console gamer these days just wants a straight forward, non-thinking, game that holds their hand the entire way through... That's what DA:O felt like.
I miss the days of Baulder's Gate 1 & 2.
What you said about Dragon Age is true.
But all recent Bioware's games have the same issue related to simplistic gear, drop, skill system. Mass Effect 1 and 2, Neverwinters Night 2 all have the same details.
NeverWinter Nights 2 is a PC exclusive and share the same issues.
Story in Dragon Age is indeed predictable, even so it is a bit better and has more moral depth than what we see in ME/NWN2.
I just disagree with you about console games.
Demon's Souls is the most challenge, unique end deep RPG of the last years, it has deep ofensive and defensive tatics, character progression, spell/skills system, an interesting and unique "drop/loot" system ( world tendency, lucky etc) and is a Console game.
In the past console games were more intuitive and simple than PC games, this is not the truth anymore. All PC best selling games are related to casual players, consoles today have all kinds of players/games.
Demon's Soul is the exception.
The ratio of hand-holding, easy, non-thinking games, to actual challening and complex games, it significantly higher for console games than it is for PC games at this point in time.
Console gamers tend to be labeled as more casual gamers, which at this point in time is not untrue. That is why games are developed and marketed towards console gamers as being more casual, and why games that are made specifically with consoles in mind tend to be dumbed down, to attempt to appeal to a wider audience.
Demon's Soul is the exception.
The ratio of hand-holding, easy, non-thinking games, to actual challening and complex games, it significantly higher for console games than it is for PC games at this point in time.
Console gamers tend to be labeled as more casual gamers, which at this point in time is not untrue. That is why games are developed and marketed towards console gamers as being more casual, and why games that are made specifically with consoles in mind tend to be dumbed down, to attempt to appeal to a wider audience.
The number of all kind of games released for consoles is higher than any kind of game release these days on PC, especially today when the piracy issue is huge on PC.
But outside flight and race similation accessible games like WoW and The Sims are the ones that really represent the PC market of today's PC gaming.
Even recent exclusive PC RPGs like Gothic 3, NeverwinterNights are easy games, usually not polished but not challenging aswell.
Consoles get a higher number of casual games, but also get a higher number of challenging games like Ninja Gaiden, Demon's Souls, JRPG with deeper mechanics than Bioware games etc.
Even all kinds of FPS games are focused on console now, from the casual to more complex ones.
The only exceptions for high complexity on PC are race/flight simulation games.
Today any kind of generalization between what is a PC gamer and what is a Console gamer will be untrue.