What are your thoughts on the combat system?

[Gabaghoul]

Do you guys like the combat system of Dragon Age: origins?

[Stormsong]

It's my favorite combat system in the series for a couple of reasons.

1.) The tactical pan view is just that, an actual zoomed out view with a wide range of motion. In inquisition (it might be just as bad in 2, but inq springs to mind almost offensively) you can barely move the camera at all in tactical view. Also, and perhaps this is just user error more than anything else, but half of the time I give commands in Inq, it seems like the AI flips a coin on whether or not it feels like following that specific directive.

2.) Speaking of tactics. The tactics window/menu/whatever you want to call it covers a lot! Mind you not all of the conditions that one can set in the tactics menu work intuitively. Quite a few have some "Oh THAT'S what that means" but still, at least when learned, it offered preferred AI behavior for most situations a companion would find themselves in while you're off micro'ing someone else.

3.) The enemies you see are the enemies you must contend with. There's an exception here and there for the occasional summon spell, but that's acceptable. First it makes sense and second it can be dealt with, just have to murder the hell out of whoever's casting the voodoo. It allows for some planning which satisfies me. None of this wave nonsense. I'm not as offended by it from Inquisition, after all at least they're coming from somewhere tangible (the portals) and can even be used against them. But in 2. Oh my lord. Why are there more people on the rooftops in Kirkwall then there are on the streets?


A point against it though -

1.) The specializations are a little boring to me. In DA:O your specilization just...hm, accents? I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it doesn't feel like a significant change in many cases (one exception that comes to mind is the arcane warrior). It feels like your character + a little extra. In the subsquent games, the specializations took some investment and when fleshed out, that is what your character became. Instead of being "okay this is my primal mage, who happens to have AoE heals" it's "That's my tempest! Yeah, the one who dove in and broke a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ and everything just died in a flashy mess of shattered glass and lights. That one."

[Gabaghoul]

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

It's my favorite combat system in the series for a couple of reasons.

1.) The tactical pan view is just that, an actual zoomed out view with a wide range of motion. In inquisition (it might be just as bad in 2, but inq springs to mind almost offensively) you can barely move the camera at all in tactical view. Also, and perhaps this is just user error more than anything else, but half of the time I give commands in Inq, it seems like the AI flips a coin on whether or not it feels like following that specific directive.

2.) Speaking of tactics. The tactics window/menu/whatever you want to call it covers a lot! Mind you not all of the conditions that one can set in the tactics menu work intuitively. Quite a few have some "Oh THAT'S what that means" but still, at least when learned, it offered preferred AI behavior for most situations a companion would find themselves in while you're off micro'ing someone else.

3.) The enemies you see are the enemies you must contend with. There's an exception here and there for the occasional summon spell, but that's acceptable. First it makes sense and second it can be dealt with, just have to murder the hell out of whoever's casting the voodoo. It allows for some planning which satisfies me. None of this wave nonsense. I'm not as offended by it from Inquisition, after all at least they're coming from somewhere tangible (the portals) and can even be used against them. But in 2. Oh my lord. Why are there more people on the rooftops in Kirkwall then there are on the streets?


A point against it though -

1.) The specializations are a little boring to me. In DA:O your specilization just...hm, accents? I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it doesn't feel like a significant change in many cases (one exception that comes to mind is the arcane warrior). It feels like your character + a little extra. In the subsquent games, the specializations took some investment and when fleshed out, that is what your character became. Instead of being "okay this is my primal mage, who happens to have AoE heals" it's "That's my tempest! Yeah, the one who dove in and broke a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ and everything just died in a flashy mess of shattered glass and lights. That one."

Wait inquisition uses the same combat mechanic as origins right?

[Stormsong]

Not...really. They use the same skeleton.

4 party members, mid combat pauses, some...version of the tactics menu.

However, the way they're used and the way they flow in both games is quite different. It might take playing both to understand what I mean.

[Shellbie]

The lack of party tactics like the first one is the only thing that really bothers me from Inquisition.

[HaloEliteLegend]

Originally posted by The Panzer Man:

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

It's my favorite combat system in the series for a couple of reasons.

1.) The tactical pan view is just that, an actual zoomed out view with a wide range of motion. In inquisition (it might be just as bad in 2, but inq springs to mind almost offensively) you can barely move the camera at all in tactical view. Also, and perhaps this is just user error more than anything else, but half of the time I give commands in Inq, it seems like the AI flips a coin on whether or not it feels like following that specific directive.

2.) Speaking of tactics. The tactics window/menu/whatever you want to call it covers a lot! Mind you not all of the conditions that one can set in the tactics menu work intuitively. Quite a few have some "Oh THAT'S what that means" but still, at least when learned, it offered preferred AI behavior for most situations a companion would find themselves in while you're off micro'ing someone else.

3.) The enemies you see are the enemies you must contend with. There's an exception here and there for the occasional summon spell, but that's acceptable. First it makes sense and second it can be dealt with, just have to murder the hell out of whoever's casting the voodoo. It allows for some planning which satisfies me. None of this wave nonsense. I'm not as offended by it from Inquisition, after all at least they're coming from somewhere tangible (the portals) and can even be used against them. But in 2. Oh my lord. Why are there more people on the rooftops in Kirkwall then there are on the streets?


A point against it though -

1.) The specializations are a little boring to me. In DA:O your specilization just...hm, accents? I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it doesn't feel like a significant change in many cases (one exception that comes to mind is the arcane warrior). It feels like your character + a little extra. In the subsquent games, the specializations took some investment and when fleshed out, that is what your character became. Instead of being "okay this is my primal mage, who happens to have AoE heals" it's "That's my tempest! Yeah, the one who dove in and broke a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ and everything just died in a flashy mess of shattered glass and lights. That one."

Wait inquisition uses the same combat mechanic as origins right?

Nope, a lot is changed. For one, the combat system went wholly more action-adventure. Instead of right clicking to auto-attack an enemy, you actively pick from an array of standard attacks like a regular action game. Not much you can do to influence your other AI members other than switch to them in combat. The tactics options are nerfed, and everything is more streamlined for a wider audience.

[Pretzel von Schnitzel]

DA:O has one of the worst combat systems i encountered in games. I play with camera behind hero and it is not very comfortable to change targets one by one. I'm not a fan of system where you have to switch to combat mode to attack enemy. You can't do some things before battle is finished. Combat by itself is slow, unless you use special attacks. Simple too. It's not Dark Sould or Witcher. No tactics or experience required. Speaking of tactics. Companions won't use potions by default.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

The talent/skill/spell tree is very simple and gives a lot of hack'n'slash feeling. I would prefer more options, more detailed feedback about the enemies' actions and the underlying maths.

Camera view mode during combat is a pain. Way to often the surroundings impose artificial constraints on how you can position the camera.

[Votarino]

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

It's my favorite combat system in the series for a couple of reasons.

1.) The tactical pan view is just that, an actual zoomed out view with a wide range of motion. In inquisition (it might be just as bad in 2, but inq springs to mind almost offensively) you can barely move the camera at all in tactical view. Also, and perhaps this is just user error more than anything else, but half of the time I give commands in Inq, it seems like the AI flips a coin on whether or not it feels like following that specific directive.

2.) Speaking of tactics. The tactics window/menu/whatever you want to call it covers a lot! Mind you not all of the conditions that one can set in the tactics menu work intuitively. Quite a few have some "Oh THAT'S what that means" but still, at least when learned, it offered preferred AI behavior for most situations a companion would find themselves in while you're off micro'ing someone else.

3.) The enemies you see are the enemies you must contend with. There's an exception here and there for the occasional summon spell, but that's acceptable. First it makes sense and second it can be dealt with, just have to murder the hell out of whoever's casting the voodoo. It allows for some planning which satisfies me. None of this wave nonsense. I'm not as offended by it from Inquisition, after all at least they're coming from somewhere tangible (the portals) and can even be used against them. But in 2. Oh my lord. Why are there more people on the rooftops in Kirkwall then there are on the streets?


A point against it though -

1.) The specializations are a little boring to me. In DA:O your specilization just...hm, accents? I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it doesn't feel like a significant change in many cases (one exception that comes to mind is the arcane warrior). It feels like your character + a little extra. In the subsquent games, the specializations took some investment and when fleshed out, that is what your character became. Instead of being "okay this is my primal mage, who happens to have AoE heals" it's "That's my tempest! Yeah, the one who dove in and broke a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ and everything just died in a flashy mess of shattered glass and lights. That one."

y e s.

Originally posted by Red Soviet Commissar:

DA:O has one of the worst combat systems i encountered in games. I play with camera behind hero and it is not very comfortable to change targets one by one. I'm not a fan of system where you have to switch to combat mode to attack enemy. You can't do some things before battle is finished. Combat by itself is slow, unless you use special attacks. Simple too. It's not Dark Sould or Witcher. No tactics or experience required. Speaking of tactics. Companions won't use potions by default.

Why are you comparing dao with dark souls and witcher?

[Name Lips]

DAO is not an "action" game. You don't use timing and reflexes.

In fact, I hate those games. My reflexes are too slow. I couldn't beat the first boss in Dark Souls 2 -- the one at the end of the tutorial dungeon. He finally glitched and got stuck in a wall and I killed him, but that doesn't really count. After that, the regular monsters in the actual game were too hard for me. I'm simply not fast enough to dodge or block attacks in time.

In Witcher I liked the idea of needing to research monsters, use the right potions, weapons, and spells to defeat each one. But again the combat was too fast for me.

Frankly I like turn-based combat, like X-COM and Mordheim, the best. High strategy, very positional, very calculated, and very lethal if you don't know what you're doing. But no reflexes needed at all.

Dragon's Age and Pillars of Eternity, with pausable-real-time, is sort of a happy medium. I'd prefer full turn-based combat, but I can deal with pausable combat.

[Bhryaen]

Do I like it? Well, I like the aesthetics of it. The animations are excellent- my fav being dual dagger dwarf rogue attacks. And many of the magic attacks have great animations too. The "finisher" animations are also excellent, particularly on dragons and ogres, but... I enjoyed the regular decapitations...

I discovered early on the formula to beating anything on Nightmare difficulty though (except the Golems of Amgarrak DLC final boss)- which sorta took the challenge out of it- using one healer mage, one taunting warrior, then whatever character class(es) you want to do the damage. You run in with the warrior- taunt everything to attack them forever, put them in total defense mode to avoid dam, keep the mage healing as needed, then do your thing- backstabs, spells, arrows, chops. Pretty much every fight except when the taunts don't draw aggro from all enemies.

I abused that system every time, especially because there is a quirk to the game where everyone in the party (even those not brought along) gets XP for it, but the one who gets the killing blow gets an extra +2XP (or +1, can't recall). With the prospects of killing 100s, maybe 1000, enemies, I inevitably got greedy for that XP... gets harder to come by mid-20s levels.

Still fun though. And you won't have a warrior capable of that until a ways into the game, so, at first you learn that playing without using the pause button is a lot more of a mess. The huge advantage of DAO over DAI is that, if you setup the Tactics options for each character correctly, you'll be able to micromanage every encounter exactly the way you need to time disabling spells or abilities correctly, make sure of who the enemy sees first (first one seen, first one attacked), and pick the location that the enemy gets to engage. In DAI they seemed to want unpossessed characters to "have a mind of their own" (i.e., not obey orders) which means even your own character doing utterly stupid things if you're not controlling them directly. DAO not so. And DA2 apparently expanded on the Tactics options (though I just rushed DA2 on Easy- wouldn't know).

The combat is just a bit antiquated. The regular attack animations look good but don't necessarily correspond to the actual attacks you're making, so you could be seeing 2 sword swings while only attacking once in that time (or 3 times) given the level of the character. And RNG makes melee pretty sloggish in the early game (which isn't so different from many other games' early game). But you can play smarter, use skills/spells tactically, use the environment to force them into bottlenecks, etc.

In short, it's not the best aspect of DAO, but with as much combat as there is in DAO, it's still enjoyable, particularly if you're new to the game.

[Zeetarb]

I prefer it, probably my favourite of games released so far. Less micromanagement than older school games, without the twitchyness that modern games go for. Ironic when games talk about accessability and then have that, but that's another story.

The tactical + 3rd person view I liked; and I liked the way the rogue's fought in this with positioning being important for sneaking and backstabbing; compared to DA2 where it's just lol magic teleport flash smash smash smash.

Magic was probably a bit difficult to work out what was a viable build and what wasn't, so tended to just spam heals and aggro spells. Warrior's it kind of pushes you down a path by giving you and Alistair both shield starting points I think, so it makes it feel more of a waste to go down a different direction which I also didn't like.

Not a fan of limited tactics slots and it being an unlock though, would like to have been able to pick a half a dozen or so for everyone without unlocking it via points.

[LilG]

I enjoy the combat system being able to set tactics, use strategies/ positioning to fight enemies & the way you can pick a path/specialisation for your party members is great,its what some modern RPGs lack with everything being fairly idiot-proof with hand holding.

Altering tactics was fun to do,experimenting with various tactics made the combat feel more engaging.Though having limited slots was a little annoying.

Micromanagining is required but its a better combat system than just hit stuff with your weapons/magic until it dies style that some games have.

The only downside I'd say would be how I felt the mage classes are overpowered in DAO/DAO:A ,they can practically destroy any target easily. Manaclash can one shot most mage type enemies or using spell combinations makes most fights trivial,compared to using non mage classes.

[HaloEliteLegend]

Keep in mind this combat system takes some getting used to and will take a while to get down and master! It can be very in-depth once you start engaging with the mechanics. Tactics, for example, gives you a lot of control over the behavior of your AI compadres.