DOF is the biggest gimmick since motion blur, both degrade image quality for the sake of realism, the DX11 DOF in DA2 blurs images even in the foreground. Apparently people think that having eyesight problems is like post-modern art or something. Look at the characters armour, even the pattern on her legs is blurred with it on. DOF on http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/2296/dragonage22011031723571.jpg DOF off http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/3641/dragonage22011031723572.jpg
@DM 777 - The ground slabs use displacement (parallax) mapping on Very High DX11 settings and that's clearly missing in your screenshot. Also your card obviously cannot do tessellation so you won't see that used for the mountains and terrain in the areas outside of Kirkwall. In effect you're using High rather than Very High settings but, to be honest, the game still looks decent plus has the bonus of running better anyway.
Yeah, I can see the difference between those two screenshots and will be disabling depth of field when I play the game tonight as it kind of adds a blur to the image akin to the PS3's quincunx anti-aliasing!
i never said i had tessellation, i said that i can make it run on very high settings, without dx11 card. even on the option it said very high. and i used high quality blur not for the gimmick, but because it increased my fps from 23-25 to around 30. Edit : i meant i never know what tessellation effects looks like, cause i never used dx11 card.
Yeah it's pretty severe. Flick back and forth between those pictures again and look how blur my characters face is with DOF on....wtf is the point of an effect like that. The default DOF is actually quite good though, when you are having a conversation with someone and the characters behind you are slightly blurred but it's not like an on/off switch after a certain distance like in many games where you can see it kick in on objects as you approach/move away from them, it has different degrees of intensity, eg. a character to your right and behind you might be slightly closer to the 'camera' than your other party member who is also behind you and so one will be more blurred than the other, even so it is very subtle and very cinematic. It doesn't detract from gameplay like the overblown e-peen 'advanced DOF!!!!!!!!!!!' of so many other games.
Champions armor you get the gaunts free at the start of act 3, rest you get over the course of act 3, just search and loot everything and you should find it all np as you progress the main quest lines. Oddly tho as you level up to 20+ you will find higher AL armors in shops and whatnot and some of the pieces of the champipn set are pretty low AL nevermind that the hat is just plain ugly as sin, but you get a pretty sweet looking helm during act 3 with great stats just shame u cannot swap the model and keep the set bonus, but its worth it to look totally bad arse. If respawns and etc are catching you out hit space to pause and look around the battle field, the lightning ball nuke thing is pretty hard to miss just run out of the area before it explodes, and look for the mage while he is casting it, then get a war or rogue with charge over there to knock the hell out of them before they can teleport, they do not have much health, a stun and a few dps moves and they will be dead as can be. Do not really need a trainer the in game console will get you by if you really get stuck, also the save game editor is a godsend for swapping models and buffing yourself a bit, and you can just do one small edit to change the wield req for each piece of gear so you can keep your fav stuff thru the game if you wish, also is a loot flag that levels some items up thru the game should be able to transplant it to other items, not had a chance to dig around for it yet tho but is all the companions armors and one or 2 loot weapons that also have the flag. Also dunno about all the gay stuff, anders is the only guy that made an overt pass at me, well and zevron of course tho i swear i imported the game save i killed him in in dao....just sucks that in anders case you only have the <3 option or 2 or 3 no thanks options all of which net you a pretty hefty friendship hit, kinda lame to say dude i like girls but i am flattered n all, oh skrew u -15, tho after my first play thru pissing off anders is not that big a deal. And what up with people posting flames about the game off stuff they read 2nd and 3rd hand that is not even true i mean gods. ;p
is this worth spending hard earned cash on? I played the SH#T out of DA1 with the expansion and all the DLC,s.really enjoyed it,actually went for a second play-through. Lots of conflicting views about this game
I bought the game yesterday. Copmleted downloading 2 hours ago and plyed for 2 hours. Bashed game by the demo bigtime. I was wrong. Game grows on u. Things i hated on da1 seems gone like boring dialog trees. I couldnt like the fighting animations but if u set ur expectations as, da2 is a different style of game, u wont be unhappy. So better accept this as it is. Like it happened in supreme commander 2. Loving the game. Just wish i can play with gamepad. My hands r i. Ig pain
Definitely high on the list of games worth the money! Not many games make me want to replay, before I was even halfway through I decided I want to replay this. Its a really neat game with great dialogue, gfx, action and a LOT of things to do. Its very streamlined so most actions are a snap to do.
btw becareful on the "wayward son" quest, there's a bug that wont let you continue to the deep road, a lot of people seemed to be stucked on it, and i decided to do that quest first to check if i'm a possible candidate to be stucked, and so far i have bypassed the : 1. i'm able to talk to samson, most people that have this bug can't talk to him. 2. i'm able to get the required map/item from the darktown slavers, a lot of people can't find his remains after the battle. 3. right now i'm on the way to the final place, don't know if there will be any issue, i hope there wont be any issue. btw the texture mod, that Mkilbride suggested is a must have. cause besides it makes some textures to be better, it also increase the performance for the game, it makes the game more smoother for me, on dx11 very high setting, i can reach 30fps without using the high quality blur. fyi when i google the dx11 very high setting on google, it seems some are able to enable it by editing the .ini files and setting it to be read only. but i didn't do that, i discover a flaw in DA2, that makes me to be able to enable it, without editing any .ini files.
i can see jaggies, but during gameplay it is not that visible, it's not like i watched every edge during play in DA2, so i decided that since it doesn't reduce any graphical quality, except jaggies at the edge of the building, i decided not to use AA in DA2.
ok i need help here, i was told on my journal, to go talk to anders in darktown, but everything i do leads me to breaking his heart because i rejected his love, and it decreased my friendship with him, i wanted to be able to increase friendship with him, without breaking his heart, and without becoming gay in DA2. any suggestion for the dialogue choices ?
you can take the <3 one and while creepy it will not set you on a emo path, or if your pro mage freedom take the hit and just drag him along on any mage related missions and his approval will shoot up, assuming you do everything you can to slot off the templars and chantry on those missions. same goes with isabella, you can slot her off a good bit doing the "good" thing, but as the story goes along she converts to your side more or less. only one i could not juggle was fenris since short of slaughtering every mage you come across he will be increasingly hating of you. and merill is a pita since i would not tell her oh yea what you are doing is great and wonderful, keep at it. no i told her the truth , you know when pro mage boy anders is riding her arse she is going down the wrong path.
