DA 2

Why was this game such fucking dogshit compared to Origins? How did Bioware drop the ball this hard?

All of the talent left Bioware between the two games.

console pandering

EA and a general lack of passion.

That said Origins isn't good either. None of the old Bioware games are.

>console pandering
I know it's a meme, but this is at least partially true. They nerfed the combat hard to be more controller friendly.

Honestly DA2 had some great ideas, following the story of a single dude through a single city was actually, on the whole, pretty fun.

They just killed the controls for consoles, copypasted dungeons because I don't even know (I'm guessing budget concerns?) and shoehorned in the conversation wheel because the success of ME1 and 2 made it seem necessary to any future bioware RPG.

The latter was particularly offensive: DA:O was very much so about character creation and roleplaying and they killed that when they made you a human with a set backstory and last name and gave you three shitty personalities to choose from for every interaction.

Mass Effect 1 was good

While I like it a lot it's pretty mediocre at the end of the day. Too many issues ultimately drag the experience down a few notches.

"Wider audience"

Dunno. I couldn't play it more than 3 hours or so until I uninstalled it.
>that everything from the beginning to getting into the city
Jesus Christ

EA.

You didn't think Bioware was special, did you? That EA wouldn't destroy them like all the others?

Started development as a DAO expansion, then EA made them do a full sequel in a little over a year.

It's the one shitty Bioware game I cut them a lot of slack for.

This shitty game still upsets me. They took everything good about Origins and ran the opposite way with it.
Origins had a beautiful world that showcased every corner of Ferelden (and didn't make each location a massive bland collectathon like Inquisition, but that's another rant) while 2 sticks you in a city for a good 80% of the time. A city that you never actually see all of, at that.
Origins combat wasn't ridiculously good, but it was a fun take on tactical RPG combat. 2 was "hold attack to win" essentially.
The Grey Warden in Origins was a blank slate that really felt like your own character, so of course 2 had to give you a fleshed out, boring, generic fantasy protagonist named Hawke, I guess trying to create a Commander Shepard for the Dragon Age universe and failing spectacularly.
I could probably write more but fuck this game, I'm done thinking about it.

Dragon Age II was originally planned to be a short expansion like Awakening was. EA forced Bioware to make it a full game AND to do it entirely ONE YEAR.

Now I think the game is below average, and Bioware today is a joke, but considering DA2 was made in like 8 months, it's pretty decent for that. FF15 took 10 years and is worse.

EA said have an RPG made in 18 months.
DA2 was the game they made because it's all they could do with what they had.

There was also the star wars MMO that probably pulled people from both the DA and ME teams.
Which probably also explains ME3 being so half-assed even though it got a 6 month delay.

Just ea making them rush it out the door because origins did so well.

Rushed as fuck to come out before The Witcher 2

They were trying to copy the success of ME2.

DA2 had a really short dev time, basically started after Awakening came out. (So shortly after ME2)

They wanted a voice protag, romances and arena style combat like ME2. The short dev cycle meant a shit ton of recycled areas and no origins. (Voice acting contributed to these being cut too) and the combat suffered greatly from a perceived imbalance between warriors/Rogues and mages in DA:O even though this wasn't actually the case so instead they wanted to make the game press X for awesome.

>imbalance between warriors/Rogues and mages in DA:O
that was a real thing, though. Mage was hugely more powerful than warrior or rogue because of Blood Magic was ridiculous

Even without Blood Magic mages are overpowered. Their crowd control and AoE damage output just gives them so much more impact in battle over the other two. Rogues are okay, you should pretty much always have at least one on your team at all times, but there's literally no reason to slot in a Warrior when you can just have your mage roll Arcane Warrior and completely obsolete them.

I've done two mage/two rogue parties and three mage/ one rogue parties, and both of them performed better than any team comp with a Warrior in it, though admittedly I never played on Nightmare.

This.

And shit writers. Even without the shit game play the story is useless and utter shit, unless they somehow made it worth it in inquisition (can't bring myself not to quit it after 30 minutes).
Origins story is really simple sure but as least the warden makes an impact.
The situation in Kirkwall goes to shit with or without hawke.

>mfw Two Worlds II was better

Something about it being rushed and redesigned.

How much legitimacy this screencap has I don't know. You could probably write a book on all the things wrong with DA2.

Speed of release, and concurrent projects.

Keep in mind, ME2 and ME3 were being worked on at the same time, as well as TOR.

The other problem was they wanted to appeal more to console users in terms of flashiness and UI, because the first game was not the most accessible to the average console player.

>press a button, something awesome happens!
>button, awesome!
>BUTTON AWESOME!
>AND we hot rodded the art!

Simple.

EA forced them to ride on DA's popularity at that time and told them to make a game in a very short time.

If DA2 had as much time put into it or more than Origins, then it would've been a pretty good game.