Dragon Age II Previews

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Written by BuckGB on December 20th, 2010

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The combat in Origins had many failings, beginning with its unbalanced difficulty. "Was the default setting, especially on PC, too hard? Yeah," admits Laidlaw. "'Normal' felt more like 'Hard' to me." Even players who mastered the combat noticed other issues: It frequently felt sluggish, the rogue didn't feel much different from a warrior, and trying to be an archer just plain sucked.

The tactical side of combat returns, allowing you to pause the game and form a cohesive plan based on your current party, but the quick pace of fights has been ramped up for those favoring a more action-oriented combat style. Combat in Origins often got bogged down by fighting animations - rather than actually throwing a spell or shooting an arrow, a character would go through a big windup and then, eventually, get around to actually doing whatever it was you they were commanded to do. According to Laidlaw, BioWare wanted the fighting in DA2 to feel more immediate and less like "some invisible person rolling D20s behind the scenes."

As he was executing commands for his party, Mike commented that he was not fully satisfied with the combat mechanics of the first game. He jokingly likened the combat in Origins to a process of issuing an order and then watching as the character lumbered off to the designated location, rearranged his position and then took a swing at his target over several seconds. That was not the case this time around. Characters moved to their positions quickly, attacks were fluid and felt like they had real weight behind them. Combat was still bloody, like in the original game, but if an extremely strong attack was made, we were rewarded with a spectacular finishing move that in one case, resulted with one of the Darkspawn being cleaved in half at the waist. These were epic heroes and their combat reflected that fact.

Speaking of heroes, in Dragon Age: Origins your character was predestined to save the land as one of the Grey Wardens. This time around in Dragon Age 2, the Grey Wardens are not the primary focus. You instead take control of a hero named Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall. Hawke is a normal Joe (or Jane) who you will guide from the humble start as a refugee (who has fled from a homeland that was overrun by the Darkspawn and Blight) through the rise to power ultimately to become a legend in your own time. You get to determine if Hawke is male or female. You also get to customize what your version of Hawke looks like and also what class you will play; mage, fighter or rogue. Once your choices have been made, the story then plays out and you determine what kind of character Hawke is. You will interact with NPC's and party members much like you did in Origins. Choices you make, quests you complete and factions you align yourself with can have a positive or negative impact on the other party member's view of you but the overall effects have been dialed back a bit. You can still end up having an adversarial relationship with a party member, but they will not be so quick to give you the cold shoulder. In a sense, just like in real life you can still work with someone even if you are not the best of friends. I look forward to seeing just how far I can push some of the other characters when the game finally ships.

Another improvement made to the rogue class is the archery skill set. The archery battle mechanic in Origins was noticeably slow and not user-friendly. However, archery has been completely re-tooled for the rogue in Dragon Age II and is now an equipable skill that pauses the gameplay so you can aim and then allows you to release your shot when ready. The archery skill set also has a number of secondary skills and abilities you can pair with your character, which makes it a much deeper experience.

And speaking of equipable skills, let's talk about the leveling mechanic. As you progress through the game, you will be able to level up both your battle stats (strength, magic, health, etc.) and unlock new abilities. Dragon Age II has an all-new ability tree that allows you to hone in on the skills you find most useful in battle and augment them with secondary abilities according to the tree. The game does give you the freedom to become a generalist and unlock every base ability, but without the various power-ups and secondary abilities, you won't get very far in battle.

Rolled into combat changes are those in skills growth. Instead of being a linear progression, skill advancement is now broken up into webs of different overarching themes, such as sword & shield, archery, and fire magic. Within those webs, players can decide how they want their characters to develop, and those choices will be extremely important to combat effectiveness.

The other major gameplay change is less radical, but will probably be more well-received, and that's crafting. While the version of DA2 I played still had some crafting bugs, the system seems to make creating potions, weapons, etc. much less of a hassle in terms of time and inventory space. For example, instead of crafting items yourself, you order them from crafters who take the materials directly into their storage that's right, no more being weighed down by carrying around 99 pieces of Elfroot. Fans will also probably appreciate additional tweaks such as being able to visit locations during day or night, on-the-fly stat calculations when choosing equipment/abilities, and a streamlined status menu.

If players have experienced BioWare's sci-fi epic Mass Effect, they'll immediately recognize Dragon Age's new dialogue wheel. To give Dragon Age its own spin on the dialogue choices, small icons are presented to the players to know what tone the response on the wheel corresponds. Since the silent protagonist of the first no longer resides as the hero, BioWare has granted the player the ability to deeply customize a character that goes by the name of Hawke, an individual rooted with a family and bound to a legacy from a framed narrative. Moving to a more dramatic lead character that speaks his/her mind, the game permits for new possibilities within storytelling.

The storyline follows Hawke, a normal citizen on the run from the Darkspawn's destruction of Lothering. Entering the Free Mashes to escape to Kirkwall, a city that is already overrun with refugees, Hawke is no (chosen one.) While Dragon Age II is about Hawke becoming the Champion of Kirkwall and his rise to power, the actual story of how he got there to spark the revolution is shrouded by myth and rumor. As a story told in the same fashion as The Princess Bride with a narrator that, at times, corrects him/herself throughout the plot, there may be scenes that are completely untrue that players will revisit to find out the truth.

I found the basic moves of combat to be vastly improved in their visual presentation and execution and was overall much more enjoyable than my experiences with the first game. I played as a Mage and the basic attacks from the staff visually alter depending on the type of staff you have equipped. It is your pretty basic fire-staff-shoot-fire/ice-staff-shoot ice type of affair but it adds a (sexy) visual flair to even basic attacks. The combat feels a lot smoother and although I made it through most sections of the combat with little worry, I did come unstuck in a quite tricky fight with a group of Templars and actually got Mike to play through the fight, as my character, to show me how to fight in a difficult situation. While I got through the early fights by battling through in real time, Mike showed me that in tricky fights you really need to slow the action down and pick and choose your targets, while coordinating your teams attacks.

Mike stressed that Tactical combat is still key. (You can still pause in the game and take you time with you tactics. You have to plan ahead to see the resistance of upcoming foes. Differing enemy types have a refined level of detail, you will have to concentrate on key figures such as Assassin's attacking your Mage and you will want to pin them down because they do quite a bit of damage. Think fast or pause. Either is a valid way to play.)

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