Why do people hate DA2?

[Window]

I didnt so much hate da2 alot of people have already covered alot of the reasons why i got jaded with it, I preferred orgins alot more and the decision to make dalish into muppets was the icing on the cake urgh

[Jay667b]

Idk. My roommate thought it was rather good. Some people like to push their opinion over as fact. We call these people "fools."

If only human beings were capable of checking their opinions at the door and take a look at something objectively, yet we apparently can't, though people do like things that are objectively bad and that's where subjectivity comes in.

[Necrolepsy]

Because Bioware made it. I don't think they make good games.

Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

[inboundpaper]

It changed far to much from DA:O for me to enjoy it, and it looks like shit on the xbox.

[Myrrar]

I loved DA2. I liked Anders from Awakening better but if you have played through both you can see why he's so different in 2. He HAD to change to make the story work.

People wanted DA2 to be DA:O again, and it wasn't..and shouldn't have been. It was a different story in the same world, not every person in their world were Grey Wardens.

DA:O was different, it was different from Mass Effect, and Witcher, and the other conversational games where your choices matter. People have rose colored glasses when they play Origins, it was going to be hard for 2 to compete no matter what it was.

Every game has things that suck, and things that are amazing. DA2 was extremely entertaining to me, which makes it a success imo.

[Gamevizier]

how do you feel about a game that allowed you to play only in the city of Stormwind (even smaller than stormwind.) and a small part of elwyn forest for the entire game & there were a few dungeons that look freakishly simmiliar to eachother?(because they all happen to be the same dungeon with only a few path blocks added or taken out.).

you can't even change the story, not in anyway. you can only run back and forth and do legwork for some people...and these legworks all happen in same enviroment over n over.

...and the ending of the game sucked.

i give dragon age 2 6/10 and i think i'm being kind to bioware for releasing such piece of crap. don't even compare DA:O to DA2 cuz I finished the first game 3 times and it's still fun. DA2 is worth 1 tries tops.

[wombinator04]

Most people hate DA2 because of the god awful combat, your stuck In 1 damn hub the entire game, the story Isn't good. Pretty much everything about It was a downgrade from DA:O. It was overall not a good game.
Now Bioware Is saying that DA3 will be more open world...NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Bioware Is not good with open world. Their about story, and hub based questing. I can already see DA3 being a train wreck If It's going to be open world. We will see though.

[Xeones]

I loved DA2. I liked Anders from Awakening better but if you have played through both you can see why he's so different in 2. He HAD to change to make the story work.

People wanted DA2 to be DA:O again, and it wasn't..and shouldn't have been. It was a different story in the same world, not every person in their world were Grey Wardens.

DA:O was different, it was different from Mass Effect, and Witcher, and the other conversational games where your choices matter. People have rose colored glasses when they play Origins, it was going to be hard for 2 to compete no matter what it was.

Every game has things that suck, and things that are amazing. DA2 was extremely entertaining to me, which makes it a success imo.

Rose colored glasses for a two year old game? I find that statment a little amusing. You might have enjoyed DA2 due to the changes, but claiming people wanted a DA:O copy is a bit far.

[Derah]

in my humble opinion, Dragon Age 2 was a good game, but nowhere near as good as DA:O was, and certainly nowhere near as great as one would expect from Bioware, a firm that for over 15 years has made EPIC rpgs.

DA:2 fixed MANY of the errors of DA:O

For a starts, the absurd gift system of DA:O, where you could be a total dick to your party members, but then give them tons of mundane things and presto, they love you again. That feels shallow, and stupid, specially since you really can give them ANYTHING.

Called morrigan a bitch? no problemo, give her 10 meat bones, and she'll let it slide.

Defiled the urns of Andraste with fouled dragon blood, thus infuriating the local religious zealot Lelliana? no problemo, give her a pair of shoes and she'll worship the ground you step on.

This really broke the inmersion for me, because all your party members were esentially open to be bribed in order to like you. On DA:2, gifts are much rarer, each gift is an object that actually MATTERS to your party member, and they have a dialog about it. Plus they are much rarer.

Then there's the influence system.

On DA:O if you wanted to reap the benefits (both the story benefits, and the gameplay ones) you HAD to be nice to your party members. If you wanted to roleplay a sadistic bastard, well sucks to be you, you HAVE to be nice to your party members, or else they'll hate you, and thus you will get neither their romances, nor their passive bonuses.

On DA:2 the slide goes both ways, you can be nicer to them to form friendships, or mean to form rivalries, either way, you get the story benefits (like romances, and personal quests) and the gameplay benefits (Passive bonuses when they are with you)

DA:2 also fixed the HUGE imbalance problem of DA:O

DA:O could had easily be called "Dragon Mage: Origin" because for all intents and purposes, rogues and warriors couln't do shit next to a mage. Mages hit harder, had multiple, chain-castable AoEs, thanks to the blood magic specialization could cast eternally without having to worry about mana, and thanks to the spirit warrior spec could wear heavy armor, and have just as much defense and survival as a tank.

OP much?

on DA:2 warriors and rogues got a significant boost in their damage, and mages got a well deserved NERF to the ground.

sadly, DA:2 had many many many flaws, =/ I blame the fact that they only dedicated a year into its development, they should had gone for at least 2.

First off: Repeated enviroments. Once you've seen a cavern, you've seen them all.

Mass effect 1 had the same issue, but at least the places you explored during the main campaign were unique, even if the places on the side-quests were all identical. On DA:2 even the main campaign places look all the same, all the mansions, all the warehouses, all the backalleys, all the caves, all the mines, all of it, just 1 design for all.

The same goes for loot, with only like 2 or 3 designs for heavy, light and robe armors, whereas on the first game, there were multiple versions of each armor, with varying colors, and truly unique sets, on this game, there is only 1 unique set, and 2 or 3 sets that are repeated over and over.

Then there's the bugs, TONS of bugs, =(

so yes, while DA:2 IS an enjoyable game (its from bioware, having fun on it its innevitable) its by far the worst game made by bioware, and can't possibly hold a candle next to others like Mass Effect, or Jade Empire, or Neverwinter nights or Kotor.

Lets hope they learned their lesson for DA:3

[Myrrar]

Rose colored glasses for a two year old game? I find that statment a little amusing. You might have enjoyed DA2 due to the changes, but claiming people wanted a DA:O copy is a bit far.

Go to the bioware forums. 90% of the threads that complained about 2 were saying what they wanted from origins. The things that were changed from O where what made them upset. The ways to fix 2, was bringing in all the concepts from O. It was easy to see people expected 2 to be like Origin...even most of the reviews said this.

Again, Origins was different. It was the reason so many people thought it was the end of all ends. It's an amazing game, and much better than 2, but since it made such a large impact on the market and gamers people expected the same thing in 2. Mass Effect 2 wasn't as popular as 1, but if it had been drastically different people would have hated it. Rose colored glasses have nothing to do with age. You can be nostalgic over a game that's only a year old if a sequel has come out and you are comparing the 2.

People are nostalgic over BC which is only a few years old...

[OrcsRLame]

in my humble opinion, Dragon Age 2 was a good game, but nowhere near as good as DA:O was, and certainly nowhere near as great as one would expect from Bioware, a firm that for over 15 years has made EPIC rpgs.

DA:2 fixed MANY of the errors of DA:O

For a starts, the absurd gift system of DA:O, where you could be a total dick to your party members, but then give them tons of mundane things and presto, they love you again. That feels shallow, and stupid, specially since you really can give them ANYTHING.

Called morrigan a bitch? no problemo, give her 10 meat bones, and she'll let it slide.

Defiled the urns of Andraste with fouled dragon blood, thus infuriating the local religious zealot Lelliana? no problemo, give her a pair of shoes and she'll worship the ground you step on.

This really broke the inmersion for me, because all your party members were esentially open to be bribed in order to like you. On DA:2, gifts are much rarer, each gift is an object that actually MATTERS to your party member, and they have a dialog about it. Plus they are much rarer.

Then there's the influence system.

On DA:O if you wanted to reap the benefits (both the story benefits, and the gameplay ones) you HAD to be nice to your party members. If you wanted to roleplay a sadistic bastard, well sucks to be you, you HAVE to be nice to your party members, or else they'll hate you, and thus you will get neither their romances, nor their passive bonuses.

On DA:2 the slide goes both ways, you can be nicer to them to form friendships, or mean to form rivalries, either way, you get the story benefits (like romances, and personal quests) and the gameplay benefits (Passive bonuses when they are with you)

DA:2 also fixed the HUGE imbalance problem of DA:O

DA:O could had easily be called "Dragon Mage: Origin" because for all intents and purposes, rogues and warriors couln't do shit next to a mage. Mages hit harder, had multiple, chain-castable AoEs, thanks to the blood magic specialization could cast eternally without having to worry about mana, and thanks to the spirit warrior spec could wear heavy armor, and have just as much defense and survival as a tank.

OP much?

on DA:2 warriors and rogues got a significant boost in their damage, and mages got a well deserved NERF to the ground.

sadly, DA:2 had many many many flaws, =/ I blame the fact that they only dedicated a year into its development, they should had gone for at least 2.

First off: Repeated enviroments. Once you've seen a cavern, you've seen them all.

Mass effect 1 had the same issue, but at least the places you explored during the main campaign were unique, even if the places on the side-quests were all identical. On DA:2 even the main campaign places look all the same, all the mansions, all the warehouses, all the backalleys, all the caves, all the mines, all of it, just 1 design for all.

The same goes for loot, with only like 2 or 3 designs for heavy, light and robe armors, whereas on the first game, there were multiple versions of each armor, with varying colors, and truly unique sets, on this game, there is only 1 unique set, and 2 or 3 sets that are repeated over and over.

Then there's the bugs, TONS of bugs, =(

so yes, while DA:2 IS an enjoyable game (its from bioware, having fun on it its innevitable) its by far the worst game made by bioware, and can't possibly hold a candle next to others like Mass Effect, or Jade Empire, or Neverwinter nights or Kotor.

Lets hope they learned their lesson for DA:3

You seem to have many misconceptions about DA:O, let me correct you on a few things.

Gifts:You could give any party member non-character specific gifts, but there was no benefit to many of them. Gifts give a minimum of +0 influence, not +1. And many gifts start out at +0 for certain party members. For example giving Morrigan 10 bones, that will get you a total of +0 influence, in other words, nothing. That is because the default influence gain for that gift is set at +0 for all party members. There's also a limited amount of gifts in the game. And with many of them providing +1 or +0 influence to party members, you can't just spam gifts to max someone's influence when you piss them off. Also, you can no longer give gifts to Leliana if you defile the Urn of Sacred Ashes with her in the party. If you do this, she attacks you and you're forced to kill her, along with Wynne. If Leliana isn't present in the party for this event, she doesn't learn of it, and you lose no influence.

Class balance: Mages were not OP in DA:O, warriors were. I will agree with you that DA2 had better class balance, (not that it really matters, it is a single player game after all) but only because tank warriors were nerfed to the ground in DA2. In DA:O it's possible to solo the entire game on nightmare mode with a warrior. No other class can do that without exploiting the infinite stats glitch. Mages are not just as survivable as warriors due to being able to wear heavy armor with arcane* warrior specialization. Mages cannot become immune to being flanked and knocked down. Warriors get this through shield expertise and shield mastery with shield wall active. Mages also don't get shield wall, which is a huge boost to survivability. Mages also can't wear all heavy armor because of templar armor. This prevents mages from wearing the best armor in the game, the Knight Commander's Plate. With the 40% magic resist from Knight Commander's Plate, it's possible to cap magic resist on a warrior. Due to being immune to flanking, warriors are also the only class that can stack enough defense to become unhittable.

Also, for mages to become anything more than an armor tank, they need to sacrifice far too much damage and mana to get dexterity to around 70. Not to mention it sounds like you haven't been playing mages properly. Blood magic is a terribly useless ability in most situations, because it is unsustainable without sacrificing significant damage. Spell might > Blood Magic. Spell might is a sustained ability that increases the mana cost and damage of all spells. Even using group heal and heal on cooldown, (you can't have blood magic, group heal, and be an arcane warrior, as that's 3 specializations) spell might makes blood magic unsustainable due to the increased cost unless you stack willpower to the moon, and that also cuts into your damage because you'll have a lower magic stat. Using blood magic with heavy armor is also an extremely bad idea, as is using heavy armor on a mage to begin with. Not only do you give up the awesome stats on the mage robes, but heavy armor will give you a lot of fatigue, which increases the mana cost of your abilities, and it's a shitload for the higher types of armor. That will leave you only able to cast a few spells with blood magic before you die. And don't forget, if you're trying to sustain blood magic, you have to waste actions healing yourself, and that also wastes the cooldown of the heal, which could probably be better used on your tank.

And mages don't deal that much damage anyway. Sure, they have Entropic Death, but that has quite a setup time for 1000 damage or so, and it has the weakness of being spirit damage, which the final boss is very resistant to. They certainly outclass everyone in AoE damage, but a good dual wielding warrior is about equal on single target. A dex stacking daggers rogue however, that shit is crazy. 200/150 damage crits twice a second with no setup time, no CD, and infinitely sustainable?

Concerning rogues, many people underestimate the power of a ranged rogue. Scattershot is the single best AoE ability in the game. Instant cast chain AoE stun with massive damage. You're looking at a 200+ hit, and a nice stun. If that thing had no CD it would own anything a mage could do. Keep in mind the area for scattershot is on ultra crack. It's the same AoE as fireball, but anything hit by it causes it to spread with the same AoE. This allows it to hit a ridiculous amount of targets. Also, song of valor is awesome. Mana/stamina regen means you can have your mages put less into willpower, and more into magic. Rogues make an excellent support class if ranged, and do the best single target damage if melee.

And no, I'm not exaggerating when I say a warrior can solo nightmare mode. There's plenty of youtube videos of people doing just that. I personally have soloed the Archdemon on nightmare mode, didn't feel like putting the time into soloing the rest of the game.

[Stir]

It is my opinion. Stated as such in the first sentence.

Also, by the way--
Hm, sorry. You're wrong. Now had it been your opinion the story was excellent... sure.

I mainly replied on the merits of DA:O, but hey...
The writing was excellent in that game. The story/plotline much, much less so. They're two different things. It might sound to you like I'm splitting hairs, but in my field of expertise, it's a really huge difference.
In DA2, the writing was much more poorly done, but I personally like the approach of having the whole thing hang together in (often completely unrelated) mini-plotlines. Of course; that makes a main goal somewhat hard to implement, and I honestly don't think that that was the aim of the game.
There are several problems that arise from this approach, though.. In an experience such as this, how do you correctly END the game? After all; in a linear plot (even if there's some unrelated sidequests) like in DA:O, it is easy to recognise the end of the game: You beat the bad guy. In absense of such a bad guy, however... Well; you can see where I'm going.

Still, even though DA2 is nowhere near as good as DA:O in terms of both plotline and social interaction, it still has most computer RPG's beat in that respect.

[mystik]

He's bisexual. And regardless of your character's gender, he comes on to you after x amount of conversations with you. If you tell him you're not interested, even if you're male, you gain like 20 rivalry with him, which is a significant setback if you wish to max his friendship.

It has nothing to do with being homophobic and everything to do with the game saying, "fuck every party member you plan to use or lose deeps."

---------- Post added 2012-01-12 at 12:31 PM ----------



You should read the thread. What you say may be true in other places, such as metacritic, but in this thread people have made their own arguments for why they don't like the game, and many of them have valid points.

---------- Post added 2012-01-12 at 12:35 PM ----------



I don't think anyone here is trying to voice their opinions as fact. The OP asked why people hate DA2, people that hate DA2 responded with why they hate the game.

Video games are a form of entertainment. Anyone trying to say that their opinion is fact concerning the quality of a game is acting very foolishly, because different people like different things. And aside from the technical aspects of a game, such as bugs, and graphical quality, there are very few ways to measure a game objectively.

So any discussion about why you did or didn't like a game is inherently subjective.

yeah you pretty much hit the point straight on.

also in Mass Effect or other games it seems your choices matter, but in DA2 it was already done. it was all a story being told by Varric that had already happen, you just had minor effects on the bigger story. not much like other bioware games.