I guess I'm used to it, as every MMO but one that I've played had you do it. EQ, EQ2, DAoC, AC, AC2, WoW, and likely a couple I don't recall. DA1 and DA2, NWN, NWN2, and possibly others also had you do so.exactly!
(thing is: I spend most of my day pipetting into microtubes with my right hand. I'm not going to spend those off hours moving a character with a right mouse button depressed all the time--especially in an open exploration game. That's rather painful)
I mostly agree on the combat but at level 13 I still can't kill dragons
The differences are greater than just being "Call of Duty with skill points and a story". Character customization, different classes, the squad system, the dialogue system, optional side missions, item stores, etc. (plus, it's a TPS, so it's more directly comparable to something like Gears of War or Uncharted than Call of Duty.)That's a big part of RPGs for a lot of people, though: traditionally, RPGs are built around open exploration of the world, as it is more or less essential to the idea that you are creating your own person in this world. Even in "trapped maps," like you have with KoToR, there is a lot of space that you can explore. I can't think of an RPG that doesn't have maps with areas that you can explore, but never really need to. Or, at the very least, offer some false sense of openness. There is still some value in that.
ME3, to me, looks like Call of Duty with skill points and a story. :\
From my experience, level 13 is the earliest you can reasonably kill a dragon (I did it at 13 with a level 12 party, and someone better than me should be able to shave a level or 2 off, with a lot of work). Doing so was probably the fun battle I've had, as it took strategy. This would also only work on the lowest level dragon.
That said, I went for game breaking this time around, and have now killed 9 of 10 dragons, on Nightmare difficulty, in under 10 seconds each. A single ability killed them all, though perhaps I should say 2, as I had Vivienne landed a lightning spell on it, for the added shock damage per hit. I'm not sure it would have died with 1 ability otherwise.
Cripes . . . do you think its fair to judge a game when you didn't make it past the first section of the tutorial? You basically watched the opening studio logos of a movie and decide you didn't like the movie.
Yes, with an insane bow, and Superb Dragon-Slaying rune.Using Tempest rogue? Thousand cuts?
I think that's a mage specific issue in this game. I wanted to play one, but after fiddling with my companion mages, you realize that nearly every skill is the same. each elemental class pretty much has the same exact skills, just different colors/elements: mines, wall, AoE blast as your actual active skills....that is pretty terrible, imo.
I do like the use of passives though, and adding the secondary effects, but yoiu still end up spamming the same type of skill throughout the game.
As a Warrior, I was on cooldown for all of my skills all of the time, so I had no trouble using them...but it seemed to me that they broke down into two categories: taunts/guard building, or rush/smash/guard break skills. It didn't feel all that diverse, even though I was using everything.
lol no, I obviously did not play the first one enough to fairly judge.
I think what happened was I "played" the Witcher closer to when it came out, and probably got distracted quickly. When the Witcher 2 came out with such good reviews, I was able to get it for free somehow. I think at that point I considered playing it but thought I should play the first one first, then after watching reviews heard that the second one was way better so I played that for a few hours. I do remember playing one of the two, and obviously it was the second one. I must have been thinking that my three hours on the second game were actually spent playing the first game. If three hours of the better game didn't make me think it was worth continuing to play, it must not have been for me.
Yeah, mages are really crippled and it sucks because it's my favourite class. I also hate no longer being able to change individual stats.
I also find the characters' faces too shiny.
KT
I also find the characters' faces too shiny.
KT
Yeah, mages are really crippled and it sucks because it's my favourite class. I also hate no longer being able to change individual stats.
I also find the characters' faces too shiny.
KT
Faces do look a bit too waxy, don't they? The skin shader could use improvement. It's still a vast improvement from previous Dragon Age games, though. Just compare Cassandra's face in DA2 to her face in DAI.
I found my mages to be pretty great. Maybe not a thousand cuts great, but outside that broken ability, mine owned.
I had a Fire, Rift mage which could pull all characters in to one point with a dropped fire mine. With pull into the abys ability, everything would be weakened, which would let me cast stonefist or immolate to recharge all my mana (Rift mage passive). If I crit, the fire mage passive would let me cast my next ability with no cooldown. I had 55% crit, so every AE would usually have a crit.
My max fire mine spells were hitting up to 13k, and it was AE damage. The character rocks. It wasn't as crazy with Firestorm, like a Thousand Cuts is, but other than that, it was an extremely powerful character.
The lightning mage, I've discovered, is the ultimate setup mage. You cast your lightning cage, or Lightning bolt on a group or dragon, then use your rogue with leap back shot, and 12 arrows all get huge spikes of lightning damage added to the hits. They also setup all the detonator abilities easily.
She does look better, but I did not even recognize my king and queen from Origins when they showed up. I find my character looks far worse than even the first game though; the character build mechanics did not work out so well for me. Does not look like the face I had going in the build mode.
I am pure fire with my mage and I am doing pure Spirit for Solas right now. I guess a secondary tree will open up at some point for me? I'm only level 8, so maybe it is too early to be complaining, but all of the trees currently look identical and boring.
KT
What settings are you using?
As far as the mages go, and this kind of goes with every character, they don't get good until the mid teens.
She does look better, but I did not even recognize my king and queen from Origins when they showed up. I find my character looks far worse than even the first game though; the character build mechanics did not work out so well for me. Does not look like the face I had going in the build mode.
At the settings I use, the skin looks remarkable realistic, with hair that doesn't. There faces do look a bit shiny, but so do normal people if they have moist skin or sweating.
I was noticing in some closeups, that Cassandra's face almost looked like her skin texture had a lay of foundation makeup, but that is getting pretty picky.
Hair is interesting. It's more realistic than hair in past DA games, with more texture, individual strands, and a bit of physics, but they seem to have been unable to get long hair working right, so it's absent from any character model. They didn't have long hair, or any hair physics, in DAO either, but DA2 did have long hair and primitive physics. So it's sort of a step back from DA2. I doubt DA2's somewhat cartoonish hair would have worked with DAI's more realistic aesthetic, though.
There are actually some sliders for makeup in the character creator, so your observation was probably correct.
My female mage has short hair, but it looks like a toupee resting on toothpicks.
KT
Mind posting a screenshot? I'm curious if I'd find it that bad.