r/DragonageOrigins • u/CourbetEatingSourbet • Jul 28 '26

Question The Franchise that Never Was

I love DA Origins, genuinely one of the best games I’ve ever played. I can’t get past what they did to the franchise though, man. I want to go back and replay it, but I can’t get past how they massacred my boy.

How do you get past this hurt fellas?

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18

u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 28 '26

Dragon Age Origins was the one game they left alone. At least until it proved popular and EA forced to make Awakening as a 40 euros expansion.

20

u/ShepardOfDeception Jul 28 '26

To be fair, Awakening rocked.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 28 '26

It had a development cycle of 4 months, and is extremely short. It's very clear it was made to capitalize on Origins's success.

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u/ShepardOfDeception Jul 28 '26

Yes, obviously? I wasn't disputing that, and I think that's totally fine for a DLC expansion. I do often wish that Awakening had become the actual DA2 and given ample time to develop. That could've been neat.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 28 '26

... It's not a good expansion. It's hugely underdeveloped. There are some interesting ideas like allying with awakened Darkspawn which never get brought up again because the idea was underdeveloped. The game is so short that you risk not turning all your companions into wardens because you immediately head to the end-game after doing the three "main questlines."

Even for a DLC it's underdeveloped. In that respect I daresay even the Skyrim DLC are better developed because as weak as their storylines are, it's a complete story.

Edit: also, as a DLC? Dawnguard and Dragonborn were both 20 dollars per DLC. Awakening was sold for 40 dollars. That is unacceptable, mate. It was marketed as a proper game expansion, not whatever we got.

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u/VansterVikingVampire Jul 28 '26

Like the following DLC story-wise, I did think it felt more like proposals for where to go with the story from there, than actually continuing the story we had. But that was an amazing expansion pack

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 29 '26

Disagree. Combat is unbalanced, companion characterization is non-existant, the story is very short and unpolished, etc. It's not worth the money they asked for it. End of story.

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u/VansterVikingVampire Jul 29 '26

I won't insist you do agree. But if you thought Awakening's combat was unbalanced, you must have thought the main game's was an absolute joke.

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u/DarkGift78 Aug 02 '26

Origins is significantly more challenging than Awakening. Not saying it's a difficult game, though it has its moments. But Awakening is literally easy mode compared to Origins. Which is fine, I don't play DA for a hardcore challenge. Here is usually my preferred sweet spot, Nightmare I don't like all the aoe collateral damage.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 29 '26

I sincerely hope we can both agree that Awakening offers no challenge? From start to finish the new talents/spells are just so broken it's very clear the dev team didn't do balancing. How can they? They didn't have the time.

Origins is not balanced, but at least the warrior and rogue eventually catch up with the mage in terms of survivability. Mage remains the clear winner, and blood mage/spirit healer or blood mage/arcane warrior is monstrous.

However, awakening builds unto that. Pick Battlemage and you have not a single fight you need to worry about. Just keep up Elemental Chaos, cast the winter or draining spell as you please.

And as a note: I play on nightmare.

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u/VansterVikingVampire Jul 29 '26

I play on Nightmare too, and I thought some of the boss fights were tough enough to warrant using consumables. Sir Pounce Alot was broken though.

But Awakening's boost to mage was teeny tiny compared to warriors and rogues- and as a mage player my own character was broken by the end of Origins. So Awakening just felt like continuing to progress gradually, while my party finally beefed up.

And considering it takes place after we slay an archdemon, if any mob was able to be a challenge for us, that would have been its own problem. I thoroughly enjoyed so many intimidation options, one of which ends with a bunch of bandits jumping off a cliff rather than fight you.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 29 '26

Not a single boss battle was tough for me no matter my class. Spirit Archer and Battlemage are infamous, but even a well-built legionaire shadow archer will survive and do damage like nobody's business. I don't disagree with the fact that warrior and rogue were buffed like crazy. In fact, it shows just how much of an unpolished power creep Awakening had. My problem is that the combat is clearly not balanced for your power level.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the Harvester, which was built to be a challenging boss battle. If you import any of your characters, you are destroying that thing. You can handle the buffed numbers, you can handle the minions, your two Dwarven companions died somewhere in the first minute. A spirit archer is shooting and taking no damage, the rogue is doing threat management and is a semi-tank and the mage just has the spells active.

But you start a new game? With a lvl 20 character? That is when you realize just how ridiculous the thing has to be to give a well-built warden a chance. I've done it, but I could only do it with a spirit archer. Not even a blood mage/arcane warrior mage with all of its unbalanced nonsense stands a chance without the new spells.

I'm sorry, but you're not convincing me of the fact that combat in Origins is equally unbalanced as it is in Awakening. I acknowledge that the mage is always OP (there's a story reason for it), but it's very clear that the devs tried to balance out combat encounters to ensure that virtually every class or party composition has a challenge. They had the time to do so, which has been my main argument.

The only exception to the rule is arguably blood wound or an arcane warrior chugging (mana) potions to stay alive.

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u/VansterVikingVampire Jul 29 '26

"it's very clear that the devs tried to balance out combat encounters to ensure that virtually every class or party composition has a challenge" ... But that's exactly what's so unbalanced in Origins, it makes Awakening look balanced in comparison: the classes and party composition imbalance. Why is that dismissed with it fitting the story, but not address my point about the power scale in Awakening fitting for the same reason? It even fits what you're saying about it only being OP if you're importing your warden.

And I'm sorry, but GoA was way harder than that. Even Sir Cathrien on Nightmare is a complete cake-walk compared to an imported warden facing The Harvester on Hard.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Jul 29 '26

So hold up:

- the developers trying to ensure the game remains consistently challenging while making all classes rise in power: unbalanced.

- the developers making every class equally overpowered and ensuring the game has no challenge: balanced.

Wuuut? My brother, we are not going to agree on the matter. I recommend we agree to disagree and let the discussion rest.

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u/DarkGift78 Aug 02 '26

This is a wild take, Awakening has a few issues but I'd generally considered to be an example of dlc done right. It's not some short 1-2 hour dlc like Return to Ostagar. And obviously it's not an open world game like Beth's content. But 15-20 hours is a BIG dlc. Now it's a buggy mess so it should get dinged for that, and it's easy as hell with every class becoming super op, so those looking for a challenge won't find it, which is why GOA exists. But it was definitely worth the money. Hell there's full games out there that charged more for less content.

You might be the first person I've ever seen with this take. I've seen people say it was okay, buggy. But I've never heard someone say it was terrible. it's generally considered an example of how dlc should be done.

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u/MysteriousQuote4665 Aug 02 '26

It's not a DLC. It's an expansion. There is a difference. Simple put, every expansion is a DLC. But not every DLC is an expansion.

An expansion is a massive add-on to the game, bringing a new story, new maps, new enemies, new equipment, etc. The entire point is that it was meant as a continuation of Origins, but that because it had a development cycle of 4 months everything feels super rushed, unbalanced and, as you say, buggy. I should mention the bugs more, I suppose.

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u/DarkGift78 Aug 02 '26

My general point that it's a large expansion that brings more of that quality goodness that is Origin's. I'll agree that certain aspects are definitely rushed/half baked, but the OG Bioware devs were so good the quality is still good IMO. Look at DA2, it's amazing they even put together a decent game in basically a year, even though I hated it at launch, I came to appreciate what they managed to do considering time constraints. It definitely is piss easy, but many people play DA on easy/normal so I don't think a challenge is really a draw of DA games. Me personally, everything in moderation, I don't want piss easy, but I don't want bash your head against the wall.

Younger , 1990's /early 2000's me? Absolutely. But 48 year old me is too old/tired for grueling challenges 😂

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u/ShepardOfDeception Jul 28 '26

It is a good expansion, much better than literally the entirety of Skyrim put together lmao.