Dragon Age: Origins Review
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Combat Remember that basic interface already discussed? It definitely deserves a brief re-mention for its transparent use in battle. I like the way you can easily swap between two sets of character's weapons at a keypress, as well. You can pause combat at any time, and enter commands for your four party members. This is basic commonsense, but it's fascinating how many RPGs have gotten it wrong in the past. Drakensang, for instance, lets you direct any one party member, and switch among them, but the others immediately default back to the horrendous AI.
The visual battle sphere of influence an old game concept, first used in an RPG in Betrayal at Krondor makes it simple to calculate areas where flank attacks and backstabs will work. Spells have generally attractive appearances that don't get in the way of viewing anything else. And when you direct a character to drink a potion from the group inventory, you actually see this in progress. You can also see when a character has been knocked down, blown across the floor, watch them rise, etc. In other words, it's WYSIWYG, to use the old word processor term. What you see is what you get. Nothing needs to be reinterpreted for symbolic accuracy, except the degree of severity for wounds. But since the game system doesn't pay attention to specific body parts, all you need do is monitor each character's health, and that's easy enough through the character icon displays.
I find combat in the 1.01a game both repetitive, and moderately unbalanced, however. It's understood that mages are storehouses of mana. Once exhausted, that's easily replenished through lyrium potions that your magically inclined team members can make with ingredients that are both cheap, and plentiful. On the other hand, stamina powers many talent-based moves that warriors and thieves can use in battle, but once gone, those two professions have very limited opportunities to replenish it until combat is over. This leaves the warrior brandishing a two-hander at melee, for example, and unable to make another Pommel Strike, Critical Strike, Powerful Swing, etc, or for the Rogue to engage again in Dirty Fighting, employ a Deadly Strike, etc.
A still greater problem is the off again, on again combat AI. Left to themselves, warriors and rogues make very good choices about what talents to use, and when. (Few things warm the heart as much as observing an opponent being laid out by a shield-bashing Alistair.) That said, it appears two or more party-based melee types don't always appear to comprehend the value of concentrating on a single enemy, even if they're standing next to one another. I've also repeatedly watched thieves ignore opportunities for backstabbing right in front of them, while they focus on another opponent who is facing directly their way; and no amount of resetting their AI seems to change this. Winning the battle frequently comes down to micro-management, and/or endless potions. Three wizards are a killer. As one party configuration, certainly, that's fine, but warriors and rogues should be just as powerful, each in their own manner, so that players can find multiple combat teams if they wish, emphasizing different professions. (Other players appear acknowledged this as well, since there are already several player-designed modifications to each of the professions' talent/spell systems and several offer better options to warriors and rogues. I haven't tried any in preparation for this review, however, as they weren't pertinent.)
Another issue is the way battle centers on the PC. In neither the BG series nor the KotOR series was that the case, so if you created a mage, you didn't have to worry about them being stuck at the front of confrontations that decayed into pitched battles but that occurs in NWN 2. With DA:O, your character won't be placed at the front of encounters, unless you deliberately put them there, but you'll still find that melee party members will periodically run to you if your mage logically hangs back and fires off spells at range. Apparently, they think you're retreating. That is something which could have been solved with a retreat button on the interface, otherwise leaving your party to ignore your leader's position. As it is, watching your tank turn and run away from the front, pursued by a herd of opponents who gang up on your mages, is not a path to true happiness.
How you play will determine how much these last two points bother you. I tend to micromanage mages while letting melee types do the sharp-edged voodoo they do so well, so I was highly irritated by both of these problems as they repeatedly cropped up. If you micromanage your front lines, though, you'll select better targets for your warriors and rogues than the AI will, and if you play the only warrior tank on your side you won't encounter that (Look, our leader is in the back lines! Hi, there! Let's do lunch--now!)
Combat Tactics
I'd like to pull out for separate treatment what should have been one the most notable aspect of combat in DA:O and could easily have been, with no trouble at all that was insanely hobbled, instead. I refer to Bioware's decision to treat the ability for users to configure and improve combat AI as an in-game, level-related skill called Combat Tactics. Four lines are furnished to each member of your party. Each line lets you add a logical statement such as (If attacked at range by weapons or magic, use Winter's Grasp) with all sorts of options to configure content every step of the way. As a system to build your own combat AI, it's the best I've seen, for ease-of-use and specificity. However. Bioware then proceeded to do a mix of allowing you additional AI-configuring lines only at extra levels, or for expended skill points. That's right: you're rewarded the ability to control your party better, or you have to spend one of a character's hard-earned skill points to gain one additional line of logic for the first two levels of Combat Tactics, then one point per two lines for two further levels.
Combat Tactics should have been freely available, with as many lines as you cared to use for each party member. Instead, they went with a counterintuitive decision that is breathtaking. Note to Bioware: good combat AI is a necessity in a game, not an in-game perk.
