Of course you are baiting.
Please don't do this, WebShaman. I have a lot of respect for you, especially for your whole Melee Mage concept (and including the Multiclassed Melee Mage variant). That doesn't mean our tastes always align or even that we won't strongly disagree on some things -- but I can assure you that I am not "baiting" you or "trolling" or anything.
For the record, I have 145 hours clocked in on DA:O on Steam. That was enough time to play through the main campaign once on Nightmare, then do each Origin (just the Origin) on Nightmare, then play Awakening once on NM, then play Golems once on NM, then play Witch Hunt on NM. I also tried a few fan mods. Recently I went back and fiddled around with some stuff to see how my memory was holding up and I even started a new Awakening playthrough (skipping over Origins) just to test the Archer builds. But I had zero desire to play through DA:O's original campaign after finishing it and I seriously considered just quitting many times -- especially during the Deep Roads.
In comparison, I have 168 hours clocked in on DA2 on Origin. I played through once. Then immediately started a second playthrough and finished that too. And then started a third playthrough but got distracted by other stuff halfway through the third (it was a Warrior playthrough -- did Mage -> Archer Rogue -> 2H warrior for playthroughs).
I didn't play it on release, though -- I played it three years after release so that may have improved some/many aspects if you played it near release. Not really sure.
Kiting one particular Boss in particular comes to mind (a Qunari). One can beat him with any build, simply by kiting and striking when he "recovers" - it is hilariously stupid.
Ah. I agree that particular fight was a bit silly, but I wouldn't have considered that kiting the way most people tend to mean it. In NWN, for example, you can kite as an archer and shoot at melee enemies (no speed bonuses on other side) without them ever being able to attack due to how the round system works (in other words...dodge + wait for opening != freely attack the enemy while never letting them hit you). In the DA2 example you couldn't really stop to do anything or you'd get hit and you also had to at least dodge the charge attack. It also wasn't remotely possible to do that fight WITHOUT kiting -- no class (except MAYBE a super tanking 1H + Shield warrior) could stand up to him while trading blows.
That's not me trying to defend the fight -- it was stupid...but we've all known for years that Bioware sucks at boss battles.
If you could design the fight, what would you have done differently? Genuine question as I've put a lot of thought into boss battles (not sure if you've seen the two modules I've publicly released)...particularly curious about how you'd make it doable for all classes/specs without being able to do with any build (in other words, on NM a 2H warrior with all points in Magic wouldn't be able to win but a properly build 2H warrior could).
Again, the difference between DA:O and DA2 is miles apart in gameplay - especially regarding the skill trees, obviously borrowed super-powered "abilities" on those trees (like Bianca's "burst" attack that affects an area!!!!!), how the items are locked to specific characters, and so on.
As for "why is the locked [insert item here] a bad thing?" - because they often have an individual look, and for fans of character customization that limits (rather than promotes) possibilities.
What did you make of my idea that DA2 skill trees are closer to the way that NWN works than DA:O? And what about the skill trees do you actually dislike? They seemed super simplistic in DA:O to me -- especially the way you could get gamebreaking abilities super early on.
What Biana's burst attack? I used Varric constantly but don't recall that -- he was set to basically auto attack for damage, use Kickback to knock a single enemy back, and use the threat abilities (drop threat on a squishy or transfer to a tank).
As a matter of taste, I simply disagree with you on the item locking. I hated the atrocious way my characters often tended to look in DA:O with a hodge-podge of items...and often were the same items so everyone often more or less looked the same within each item type. I liked the way each character had a distinct look in DA2 that still got upgraded over time. Again, I don't think you're "wrong" per se as I think it's a matter of opinion and get where you're coming from, even if I disagree.
While I know this is not a DA thread- I do have to agree that the Mage combat in DA 2 was better than DA:O
Indeed. Combat in general was massively more active in DA2 -- even if the Mage spells weren't so ridiculous in some cases (which I actually preferred). There's a lot of mods for DA:O that literally just speed up the combat because a lot of people thought combat felt like wading through molasses.
