Dragon Age question

[Rakewell]

I've been thinking of buying this game for a long time, and was wondering if it's something that I would like.

The only RPG's I've ever played are Fallout 3 & (currently) FO New Vegas.

Is DA:O any way similar to FO3/Vegas, in terms of the loot system, combat & leveling up?

Also, is the combat pretty straight forward for a n00b such as myself, or is it complicated?

Thanks.

 

[Joemonkey]

not very similar at all, and combat depends on difficulty level. I loved the game but you'd probably hate the way combat works...

 

[JoshGuru7]

Dragon Age is a really good game, but it's nothing like Fallout. It's a turn based RPG (like Baldur's Gate, or even Final Fantasy) where you can pause combat and give orders to each of your party members. The skills, classes and spells are original but definitely inspired by DnD. For the most part you don't aim anything, you just tell your character (and party members) what skill to use on what target.

The questing is also more scripted. It's not an open world where you can explore everything, but a collection of instances that you travel between (in a set order for the most part). The strength of this is that the storyline is a lot stronger for these sort of games since everything is scripted to take you exactly through the story as they want you to progress for the most part.

 

[zinfamous]

combat is quite lame. I haven't played the new Fallouts, but if they are like Fallout 1&2, then you will hate DAO combat.

I liked DAO, though. It's not complicated at all, but it can be difficult if you choose a path early on that is not exactly scaled to the lower levels.

 

[arredondo]

I haven't played the Fallout games but I'm enjoying DA:O right now. The combat is really tactical and it takes a bit of time to get used to it to do what you want. Once you do however, it is easy enough to fight since you do it so often. As the poster above said, it's the storyline that makes it enjoyable the most.

My only problem is that now that I really see what I want to do, I'm bothered that I wasted some skill slot purchases on skills I'll never use again. I'm going to poke about for a re-spec mod to tweak a few things I'd have done earlier if I better understood the battle system.

 

[s44]

It's a turn based RPG

Totally wrong.

Fallout 1/2 were turn-based. Dragon Age Journeys was turn-based. Dragon Age Origins is realtime with pause. (And Dragon Age II is going to be crap.)

FO3 is a shooter/RPG hybrid, though, so Dragon Age is considerably more tactical, at least on PC. On non-easy difficulties you have to think of your party as a unit and not just your one guy.

Mass Effect is Bioware's more shootery RPG franchise.

 

[frozentundra123456]

DAO is more of what I think of as an RPG. I havent played Fallout 3, but I would agree with the other posters that it is really more of a shooter/RPG hybrid, and much different from DAO. I cant say if you would enjoy DAO, but will be much different from Fallout 3.

Have you tried Borderlands? I have gotten into that game quite heavily. It is a shooter/RPG hybrid with basically unlimited loot. I think this game would be much more like Fallout 3 than DAO would be.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Dragon Age Journeys was turn-based. Dragon Age Origins is realtime with pause. (And Dragon Age II is going to be crap.)

You're making a distinction without a difference, Dragon Age: Origins is much more like a turn based RPG (BG2) then a real time RPG (Witcher).

Sure it doesn't force the pausing and you can play on an easy setting continuously, but to get the most out of your party on a hard difficulty you need to treat it exactly like earlier Bioware products where you pause, manage your skills, then let the action play out while your skills execute and then pause again.

 

[s44]

Sure it doesn't force the pausing and you can play on an easy setting continuously, but to get the most out of your party on a hard difficulty you need to treat it exactly like earlier Bioware products where you pause, manage your skills, then let the action play out while your skills execute and then pause again.

None of those were turn-based either.

The whole point of turn-based is that you can plan and execute your complete action without thinking about interference from an enemy. It's your turn, so you do what you like. (As in FO1/2, TOEE, and JRPGs.) Pen-and-paper D&D is (still!) turn-based, based on a round structure by initiative. Bio's Infinity Engine kept the round duration for actions, but the change of making everything happen at once (realtime with pause) nevertheless made for totally different gameplay. (The battlefield is much more fluid, there is a race element to making decisive moves, etc.)

I make the distinction because, again, the original Fallouts actually *were* turn-based. Then FO3 came out all the way on the shooter side... The franchise skipped the RTS-like Infinity Engine style entirely.

 

[Specop 007]

I haven't played the Fallout games but I'm enjoying DA:O right now. The combat is really tactical and it takes a bit of time to get used to it to do what you want. Once you do however, it is easy enough to fight since you do it so often. As the poster above said, it's the storyline that makes it enjoyable the most.

My only problem is that now that I really see what I want to do, I'm bothered that I wasted some skill slot purchases on skills I'll never use again. I'm going to poke about for a re-spec mod to tweak a few things I'd have done earlier if I better understood the battle system.

I had the same problem. There are respec mods available which I had good luck with although I cant remember any names specifically. Been a while since I played.

Otherwise I'd say FO3 vs DA:O are about as far apart as you can get outside of the fact they are both playable on the PC.

 

[Fenixgoon]

i thought dragon age was ok. i had a lot of issues with how combat operated (AI issues mostly. i was also pretty mad my super badass 2-handed guy was worse at combat than sword/shield guy in every respect)

 

[JoshGuru7]

The whole point of turn-based is that you can plan and execute your complete action without thinking about interference from an enemy. It's your turn, so you do what you like.

Reading into your posts, it sounds like we both agree that there is a tradeoff in most games between tactical strategy elements and "twitch" gaming elements. Furthermore, one of the things that it sounds like we both liked about the original fallout games was that they looked like this on the spectrum between the two:
Strategy <X-----------------> Twitch

I would also agree with you that FO3 and FO:NV are completely different. Having completed both, I would place them like so:
Strategy <--------------X---> Twitch

What I meant by distinction without a difference is that I would place Dragon Age: Origins like this:
Strategy <-X----------------> Twitch

Perhaps you feel differently about this. Maybe you played on an easier difficulty than I did where you weren't constantly pausing it to issue orders, or maybe we just look at it in different ways. Regardless, I would be very comfortable recommending DA:O to anybody who told me they wanted a tactical turn-based RPG over a real time one. I knew somebody who was extremely new to gaming but she successfully played through (and enjoyed) KOTOR through very extensive use of the "pause and issue orders to your teammates" strategy.

Edit: Because it was mentioned, I would rate Borderlands like this:
Strategy <------------------X> Twitch

Great game (especially if you play with friends), but after a couple of hours you realize that the key to killing anything is simply shooting in the right "critical location" and if you have good aim then you need to intentionally fight a couple levels above yourself in order to have a challenge.

 

[s44]

(Edit: OK, you edited out most of the stuff I was disputing.)

This is the thing about turn-based games.

There's an emissary on the other side of the battlefield, and he's raining hell on your party. Can you charge across and knock his ass down? In a turn-based game, absolutely. It's your turn! Send anyone, the enemy has to sit there while you move into position and strike.

There's a chokepoint/hiding spot you need to grab...

There's a guy flanking your tank, and you need to get rid of him, preferably by attacking *his* flank...

There are a pile of enemy archers, but they haven't spotted your mage so he goes first. He has a slow-firing area spell...

What happens when you play any of these situations in a turn-based manner in DAO? (Not good.)

Seeing and anticipating battlefield position, character action speed, and the never-static context in which your characters act is essential at higher difficulty levels.

 

[Nik]

The difference is that DA is a good game and FallOut3 is shit.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Even in the web-based DA minigame there are limits to how many hexes you can move each turn. That emissary may take three turns to get to, which equates the 6 seconds it takes your fighter to run there in DA:O at a rate of about 2 seconds per turn.

You can absolutely flank a character that is aggro'd on you in DA:O by running behind them, and that's the bread and butter of the momentum rogue. You can issue the move order while paused, and the enemy eventually turning around to face you is them taking their next "turn" and turning around.

If the archers truly haven't spotted your mage, then you have plenty of time to cast your spell in DA:O as well. If they have spotted you, then think of it like an attack that takes multiple turns to execute in FF. You queued it up, but there's no guarantee your character is going to be alive in three turns to use it. Most of the wrinkles here are things that add strategic complexity (ability of archers to interrupt casters) rather than things that require quick thinking or twitch skills to avoid.

Seeing and anticipating battlefield position, character action speed, and the never-static context in which your characters act is essential at higher difficulty levels.

And I guess my point here is that on a basic mechanics level the same is true of DA:O. Characters may run at the same speed, but the skills and abilities themselves have varying execution times that lead to the same sort of decisions. The turns have the ability to run fluidly into each other if you don't pause (which is good for people who want the real-time feel), but you can break things down into micro-second intervals instead if you want an entirely strategic feel to the game, and this becomes the necessary way to play on harder difficulty levels when you need to start micro-managing everything.

 

[SparhawkJC]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that DAO has a very robust modding community to enhance your gaming experience. If you do get it check http://www.dragonagenexus.com/ out. Improve your textures, add more tactics options, etc.

I grew up on Bioware RPGs so DAO's combat was intuitive to me, however to players who are new to this style of RPG it may be overwhelming. Start out on easy and as you start to get the hang of how the mechanics work ramp it up, just be very careful of friendly fire at harder difficulties.