If Baldurs Gate is an hardcore RPG I am an hardcore porn star ...

Well, if the recent DA III leak is to be believed, the stakes will be higher again in that game. I hope, however, that they merely keep the general scenario that comes up at the end of DA II and that beyond that they'll largely ignore characters and events from DA II.

I enjoyed the game for what it is. Hopefully the third game will mix elements of both. There's stuff I liked better about the first, but then there are things I liked better about DAII.

erm.... I never said it wasn't user friendly, I'm just guessing the devs were told to make DA2 more user friendly.

Dunno why so many topics here degenerate into a console vs PC debate.

Actually it sounds like they're running around in circles trying to figure out where to go. The last I heard it was going to "take notes from skyrim" or something to that effect. Hyping it up now, promising everything from every game. And it'll all be ready in two years and a bit from DA2. Much like the massive changes going from Mass Effect 2 to 3.

And EA will cough it up on schedule, no matter how unfinished it is and how much content needs to be cut.

My hopes are not soaring high in the golden clouds.

Nightmare Harvester is considered the hardest thing DA:O has to offer (which is not true, Nightmare Sten in Darkspawn Chronicles is). I did it with a level 25 Rogue (considered the hardest class with which to beat him). I'm with you, the game is stupid easy. Or were you speaking of 2? I could believe it's stupid easy too, but in said case it would only be following DA:O's lead.

I'm talking about DA2.
DA:O's Nightmare is, yeah, stupid easy, have a mage in the party or a DW-Warr and watch them steamroll. In my 2nd playthrough of DA:O, my DW-Warr did 50+% of the dmg of the whole party. It's nothing like compared to Baldur's Gate 2, even when your character grew more powerful, there's always enemies more powerful than you, not because of level-scaling or cheese tactics but genuine, new enemies and bosses with varied abilities.

To be honest, DA2's Nightmare is harder than DA:O Nightmare, why? Because the game uses cheese tactics and spawns mobs all around and behind your healers and squishies, also on Nightmare enemies dmg is amplified so the healers get 2 shotted if you aren't careful. And that happens on almost EVERY fight, unless you find some chokepoints. The more you fought in DA2, the more you realise how lazy their attempts at making combat are, doesn't help if you fought in the same environment and same monsters over and over again. Oh yeah, like someone mentioned, there's no overhead isometric camera like in DA:O, so you have to pan around to find the mob troubling your healers. The fights boil down to just keeping healers alive from the ambushers, heal whoever is in trouble, tank to get arggo, use cross-class combos to take out enemies fast especially the most dangerous ones like the rogues and mages, thankfully the combos still do a good amount of dmg on Nightmare, so I pretty much use Shield-Bash, Stagger, Chain Lightning on most of the mobs but the Stagger debuff only lasts for a split-second so CL has to be executed together with Shield Bash. You can't happily use the big nuke AEs as there's FF which will definitely kill your party. CL combo is the best bet for the hardest hitting and enemy-hitting spell.

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Eh? How was it needlessly complex? And if I recall at least BG2 has a lot of different abilities as well, perhaps not as many for a non-spellcaster but still. There was a lot more hand holding in DAO than BG, IW or any other former cRPG.

Well, there was far more abilities and their combinations at any given time in DA: O than in any other tactical game I have ever played. I would call that needlessly complex, but I didn't really like the system in DA: O, so maybe I just didn't get into it.

Well you're a tactics god and I am but a lowly human, I guess.

Didn't say that. I only said the game wasn't tactical because you kept repeating the same things which Gersen said as well.

Ha, finished. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Well the last boss was kind of cheesy, but other than that, it was great. So... Anyone care to tell me what was wrong with the ending, other than that?

In my estimation (both my personal feelings about it and the sense I get from other people) part of the problem is that the end boss fight / the reasoning for the end boss fight is silly and contrived. Which is true I think. I would have much preferred (SPOILERS AHOY!) a confrontation between the Circle and the Chantry based on real reasons and not on a demon on one hand and a demon-artifact/sword thing on the other. I really think that the conflict of Circle vs. Chantry is great, but the game boils down in the end into pick a side, kill people, and then go and kill more people (who you thought were on your side, but are now evil, lolz).

Eh. Also the whole spark which sets stuff off, with Anders destroying the Chantry tower is hated (personally, I'm sort of in the middle on this - as I was mostly just very surprised when it happened) because no matter what your Hawke does to try and get Anders to back down and not become an extremist he still does this. So player agency is taken away. I mean, maybe the expectation (particularly in modern Bioware games) is to blame here: that you as the player have "choices" which means that you can control everything through the right combination of skills and stats and so you can get the "right" ending, rather than a pre-decided thing. But within the context of Hawke's ability to do almost anything else and convince your followers of everything, all your work with Anders to get him to be calmer and less "Justice-y" is negated. Which people loathed.

Spoilers, obviously.
I do agree about the last bit. I actually liked the whole thing with the sword, it nicely wrapped up the artefact storyline and made the entire Deep Roads trip meaningful - it has also explained why was the woman-templar-person (I'm horrible with names) worse day by day. At any rate, ending was like an hour long, following on 30 hours long game - and the vast majority of those 30 hours were excellent. I really felt the consequences of my decisions in most cases, especially when taking Bethany to the Deep Roads without Anders (really, I should have seen that coming. Stupid me.) I felt, from the letters that were sent to me of from dialogue in later chapters, that vast majority of my decisions were meaningful - including the last 'big' one. And Anders not changing because player character says so? He was Grey Warden. I really don't think he's about to bow to anyone.

The inclusion of the Lyrium artifact was a terrible idea. It completely undermines everything Meredith stood for and makes the whole thing depend on a stupid macguffin plotline. It turned what could have been an interesting moral conflict into a shouting match between a mad woman and a mage without any personality whatsoever, with you in the middle and no matter what you can only pretend to side with anyone instead of really going through with it because the damn game doesn't let you.

I never felt like my choices amounted to anything and the whole thing just left me feeling empty. IMHO, the game just strings you along, and I do not appreciate my time being wasted like that.

*sigh* Look, if you liked it, fine. I don't understand it in the least, but whatever. Different tastes, and all that.