EPTDragon Age - Page 10
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Milton Friedman
98 Posts
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
I agree that the character creation isn't as much fun as it used to be in BG 1 and 2 but I think the character development after that is done well. (I used to sit for about an hour rolling my main characters starting attributes  ) In BG there wasn't all that much you could specialize in while you leveled your character. Your character was mostly defined by how you created it from lvl 1, what items you used and how you played the character. I like the idea of carefully choosing which spells to use, how far to go into each sub tree, which skills you can do without etc. instead of randomly picking up or buying spell scrolls along the way.I like how almost every major battle in DAO forces you to adapt your strategy, at least if you are playing at a difficulty setting suiting you. I'm not going to spoil what I faced where but my usual strategy up to that point was to just fireball->earthquake->inferno into the enemy group then pick of anyone who survived. So after I had cast earthquake and when I'm channeling inferno the boss uses some Mortal Kombat Scorpion "Get over here!" on my mage pulling him into the earthquake and the group of monsters and away from my group. I played for 32 hours on my mage on normal diff. but have dropped that character now. It's hard for me to continue playing a character when I know I made many mistakes in her design early on, also I'm starting to realize that Normal diff. is a bit easy. It doesn't force good party composition on you the way I'm hoping Hard will. Just started a Rogue on Hard now. Maybe that will be more challenging  | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
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noClue
United States94 Posts
I LOVE MY MAGE lol. Playing as a Blood/Arcane. Just upkeep a ton of buffs and use your life to fuel your spells. Amazing, just amazing lol. Though you can't let the AI take over at all. Also there was sum1 who said over on page 9 that you HAVE to follow a specific tree. That's just completely false. If you want say your warrior to play a specific role like only defense, then yeah you have to stay in that tree. However you can still easily create say a Offensive warrior with both Bow skills and Melee skills so that he can adapt better to a certain situation. There is nothing stopping you from going multiple trees. It's all simply based how you want to play out the game. I agree with most people, not as good as the older games but still considering what has been released lately. I'm very happy to have a new game out that is similar to BG. Tip for anyone having issues on Nightmare. I don't play hard so I'm not sure if it's as difficult really. In nightmare you HAVE to setup ambushes. It pushes the game to the whole Strategy > Action level. Like never run into a room. Place melee on either side of the door, place mage near the back then use a rogue to lay traps and lure, or something similar (that's my setup lol). But since my mage can survive everything now, I just give her a sword and shield, throw her in the front line and go Battle Mage style. Party: Mage, Alistair, Zevran, Morrigan. (killed Wynne D: ). When ambushed, I have plenty of stuns and snares to stop them badies. Most of them go straight to Alistair anyways lol. Just like with SC, positioning is everything! :D. Anyone beat a dragon yet? I did :D, it was cheap. It destroyed my melee guys and got stuck in the process. My mages killed it with ease haha. | ||
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Milton Friedman
98 Posts
On November 08 2009 23:26 DrainX wrote: I like how almost every major battle in DAO forces you to adapt your strategy, at least if you are playing at a difficulty setting suiting you. I'm not going to spoil what I faced where but my usual strategy up to that point was to just fireball->earthquake->inferno into the enemy group then pick of anyone who survived. So after I had cast earthquake and when I'm channeling inferno the boss uses some Mortal Kombat Scorpion "Get over here!" on my mage pulling him into the earthquake and the group of monsters and away from my group. I played for 32 hours on my mage on normal diff. but have dropped that character now. It's hard for me to continue playing a character when I know I made many mistakes in her design early on, also I'm starting to realize that Normal diff. is a bit easy. It doesn't force good party composition on you the way I'm hoping Hard will. Just started a Rogue on Hard now. Maybe that will be more challenging Hmm. For me it came down to how many potions I can spam. The enemy you're talking about must be the Revenant, who I agree is a lot of trouble. Especially when he's with some undead henchmen. At the end of the first battle I had with him I only had Alistair alive and kept using lesser and normal health potions while he slugged it out. That's what I dislike: heavy reliance on potions with no penalty for doing so, since they tend to come quite cheaply. Also, I find a lot of enemies spawn in around an area in flanking positions so it's hard to hit them all at once with the AOE. Good luck with the rogue. At the moment I'm still enjoying the power of my arcane warrior/blood mage despite a few poor choices in spells. But it's okay when he has more armor than Alistair and deals the majority of party damage Perhaps normal difficulty is too easy, although my choice was based on watching some video reviews saying the game was "hard even on easy". Oh well, sometimes it's nice to have an easy time. | ||
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InFiNitY[pG]
Germany3468 Posts
For example the fact that the map does not properly show whether you can pass or not was really annoying early on. I think bioware underestimated people's will to discover secret places, trying to pass where it looks like you can't. Fortunately, after about 30 hours of play, i can say don't bother. I have not discovered a single secret passage by trying to pass dead ends. If it looks like you can't go any further, it's safe to assume that you actually can't. Also, why do they add such a ton of "crap loot" that's only good for selling when you are capped at 70 items.(i know you can buy backpacks but it still seems too little) also, a four character party just seems too small to cover all aspects. A perfect setup would be 2 melee, mage, healer, rogue, so which one should you leave out? I played a downloaded version but now that my original arrived, i wanna start new. a melee rogue seems pretty useless to me, to have him be effective you will probably have to control only him in a fight, which would be a pretty bad idea overall. so right now i am deciding between a 2warrior/2mage, 2warrior/mage/bowrogue and 1warrior/2mage/bowrogue combo. It's annoying to pass all these chests without being able to open them, do you think it's worth keeping a rogue in your party for it? I felt like leliana does very little damage overall and Zevran just dies way too easily, so the only way I'm gonna play leliana is by going for full out support, getting high cunning and making her a bard/ranger, but it still don't know if that's enough to make her worth dropping a melee or mage for. Dunno if there is anything really good to loot in chests that you can only reach with a rogue. Of course you could clear everything and just go back with a rogue in your party to open chests, but that sounds way too annoying. how do you guys play an arcane/warrior bloodmage then? because this was my idea too. is it actually possible to do melee damage with buffs or do you just get level 1 arcane warrior with lots of magic/const and low willpower and just activate the life instead of mana ability and go pure magic damage? seems like the best option to me so far. Another thing, do you consider a weapon/shield warrior useful? I have the feeling that he can't really "tank" a group of mobs at all, which would make him just a warrior with low damage and high armor. did you find it possible to actually make a mob or group attack your weapon/shield guy? what are your overall experiences about the best party setup? | ||
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NeonFlare
Finland1307 Posts
I'll probably try to build him/her around elemental spells and the curse(s) that weakens opponent's resistances against them. Could this work? or am I better off with some sort of pure support with heal, stun and whatnot? | ||
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orgolove
Vatican City State1650 Posts
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Boundz(DarKo)
5311 Posts
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writer22816
United States5775 Posts
On November 09 2009 17:22 orgolove wrote: A question. Are the DLCs worth it? I'm kinda pissed that they set so many content aside as DLCs rather than keeping them within the expensive main game... Yeah I'm curious about this too, dl'ing game right now and I can't wait after reading these comments! | ||
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Milton Friedman
98 Posts
Anyway, I'm sure arcane warrior/blood mage can either be played as a battlemage (heavy armor plus strong weapon) and then using a few AOEs every so often. Personally, I can't accept the increase in fatigue combat magic gives so I just equip Blood Dragon armor but everything else mage orientated giving about 26% fatigue. Then I just cast until mana runs out, in which case I then switch to blood mage or the Blood Power spell that converts health to mana. Blood Mage is faster to activate, although it depends on the situation. A question. Are the DLCs worth it? I'm kinda pissed that they set so many content aside as DLCs rather than keeping them within the expensive main game... I would say they aren't. Have you ever played Throne of Bhaal and experienced the awesomeness of Watcher's Keep? I was very much hoping Warden's Keep would be similar but it's not. Not in the least! Watcher's Keep is far superior in terms of difficulty of battles and puzzles to be solved as well as being many times the size of Warden's Keep. Indeed, the last floor of Watcher's Keep and the final revelation are great fun and very memorable - Warden's Keep lacks the epic scale in that it doesn't provide many new items, doesn't take very long to complete, story is okay and on top of that the lack of challenge mentioned above. The Stone Prisoner is even shorter and even less worth the money. | ||
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Abyzou
Sweden209 Posts
![[image loading]](http://upload.snelhest.org/images/091109skon_jude.jpg) I love this guy. And I love how often there are awesome merchant characters in games. Greedy, lovable bastards. <3 "I'll buy it at a high price." | ||
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[X]Ken_D
United States4650 Posts
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Velr
Switzerland10624 Posts
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TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On November 09 2009 19:14 Milton Friedman wrote: I don't like how you can't force open locks anymore. I don't like how you can't pre-emptively target enemies instead either forcing into a cutscene where your whole party follows you so you can't strategically place them around a room before hand or having to get so close to an enemy to trigger their hostility then run away again. Agree with the first one, but the second one sort of makes sense. It's not like the enemies would just *let* you set yourself in strategic positions around the room. Being able to do so is very metagame-y. On November 09 2009 19:14 Milton Friedman wrote: I would say they aren't. Have you ever played Throne of Bhaal and experienced the awesomeness of Watcher's Keep? I was very much hoping Warden's Keep would be similar but it's not. Not in the least! Watcher's Keep is far superior in terms of difficulty of battles and puzzles to be solved as well as being many times the size of Warden's Keep. Indeed, the last floor of Watcher's Keep and the final revelation are great fun and very memorable - Warden's Keep lacks the epic scale in that it doesn't provide many new items, doesn't take very long to complete, story is okay and on top of that the lack of challenge mentioned above. The Stone Prisoner is even shorter and even less worth the money. Definitely agree with this, though Watcher's Keep is sort of an unrealistic bar to beat. The only real similarity between it and Warden's Keep is the name, and I haven't expected Bioware to be capable of putting out something that caliber for a long time. Still, I don't consider $7 for a lackluster dungeon to be a worthwhile investment. Maybe in the future if it's part of a bundle or something, but not on its own. I thought Stone Prisoner was free with all copies of the game? Why would it need to be "worth the money"? On November 10 2009 00:30 [X]Ken_D wrote: Is there a demo available? After coming from Mass Effect, my #1 rpg of all time, I'm not too fond of the look in Dragon Age. Uh, IMO Mass Effect is the worst RPG Bioware has put out to date (NWN's included campaign is worse, but redeemed by the editor, and Jade Empire, while probably a worse game, doesn't count as an RPG to me). And this is coming from someone who hasn't been a fan of Bioware games for a long time. | ||
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noClue
United States94 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Shield Warrior: Very effective IMO. He never dies, rarely have to micro him (just need to get him into position). Enemies always target him first. The only thing you have to watch out for is the other party members pulling enemies away from him. So when I play, the first thing I do when entering combat is do Full Party Selection > Target (usually the middle one). Then I micro my Mage nukes and shutdown spells. Like locking down a boss or using my blood magic to stun a group of rangers. Ect. Basically I'm microing my ranged to counter other ranged. No melee ever pulls off my warrior. Only time it happens is if you attack an enemy that the warrior isn't attacking. Damage wise, he is fairly low, but that's fine for me because I have Assassin/Duel Rogue that mops up the enemies for the warrior. Arcane/Blood Mage: Pretty tricky I think. Theres a few ways you can tackle this really. You can use up your energy, then load up on upkeep skills. Then use you life to fuel the rest of the spells. When needing a heal, disable blood magic and heal. For the most part I don't do much melee with my Mage due to the fact that I'm already using my life for energy. What the Arcane Warrior does for the Blood Mage is it gives unparalleled defense for the Mage. This is vital for the Blood Mage. I thought about it and it was a toss up between Spirit Healer and Arcane Warrior. Since BM reduces healing, SH is pretty useless. Just grab the Heal spell and that's all you need. You have to remove the blood magic spell to heal anyways so yeah it's useless. The area where Blood Mage is most vulnerable is when in the blood mode. You can't spare any health at all. Taking damage is very very bad obviously. Higher chance to die and less spells you can cast. So the amazing defenses of the Arcane Warrior allow the Blood Mage to survive in those situations where you may accidentally pull an enemy. While in Blood Mage mode I usually upkeep like 8 spells. So literally I have no mana due to the huge upkeeps. I upkeep 2 weapon spells, bunch of defense and spell buffs. As far as I've heard though Battle Mage is a very viable strategy. Some people say that the Arcane Warrior surpasses a warriors defense and survivability. Their damage is just a lot lower. @DLC's. + Show Spoiler + They're interesting and short. You gain some pretty cool armor (depending on choices) and 2 fairly useful spells? One of them is a Mana/Stamina restore, restores a heafty chunk, very useful. The other is just a standard damaging spell. Both blood magic, so they cost life. The other DLC for the golem is pretty stupid, you just get a useless golem lol. I'll add my irritation with this game :D. I hate chests! They don't give anything good! Completely useless... All the good armor you get from fighting bosses or buying from merchants anyways :-/. As far as parties... I favor Mage/Alistair/Zevran/(Morrigan/Wynne), Mage/Alistair/Leliana/Morrigan. Obviously I like Mages, but not for their nukes. They have the best spells to lockdown enemies. In the 2nd grouping, I use the bow for traps and high ranked poisons. My melee guys all have 1 into poison. So, I have 2 upkept weapon buffs, along with the poison buffs . Makes melee/bow very very dangerous.+ Show Spoiler + You can exceed the party limit with cheats :3. The only downfall is you cannot actually control the spells of the additional characters. The AI however can cast those spells. So basically once you pass the 4 character limit, additional characters are "half" NPC's. You can still select and move them though... add -enabledeveloperconsole to a shortcut of DAOrigins.exe or a shortcut from Steam's "Game" list. When in game: TILDE type: runscript addparty (name) | ||
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WiljushkA
Serbia1416 Posts
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
On November 10 2009 02:13 TheYango wrote: Uh, IMO Mass Effect is the worst RPG Bioware has put out to date (NWN's included campaign is worse, but redeemed by the editor, and Jade Empire, while probably a worse game, doesn't count as an RPG to me). And this is coming from someone who hasn't been a fan of Bioware games for a long time. We have the same tastes in Bioware games. =D After playing for a few hours, I just finished Lothering and just hit level 7 on my main. I'm playing a dual-wielding rogue that I'm planning to be an assassin/duelist. I loved BG's isometric views but found myself playing mostly in third person view in Dragon Age. The issue for me is that I see too little in Dragon Age's overhead view. It's just not zoomed out enough to be effective. I'm playing at normal right now and don't plan to install the patch until I end my first game. Not sure why they had to nerf normal that fast. It's been a decent challenge so far and I've had to fight quite a few battles multiple times. I think the worst was one of the bandit camps in Lothering, though that's partly me being anal about not letting even one party member die even though I'm in a town and being extremely conservative on potions. I'm playing a human noble rogue and using Alistair, Morrigan and Leilana in my party. I'm leveling Warrior and Sword/Shield talents for him but he still seems pretty squishy as a tank. I just leave him to the AI to use most of the time because his talents are the spam variety and the AI does better on those. I'm not a big fan of Leilana combat wise. Her talents and default combat tactics are all bow oriented. But for some reason, she keeps switching to melee and I have to switch her back manually to her bow. It's not like she's that close to melee range most of those times, either. Her damage output is pretty low as well. My main char is a rogue. He's very squishy and it seems like Alistair can't keep threat off of him even when using the Threaten talent. I run around to backstab and it seems like mobs keep turning to me immediately. It's getting to be not worth the hassle to position and only get a single backstab in before a few mobs turn on me. Morrigan is very good so far. My only complaint is that I just get her and her starting talents and spells are all over the place. Mind blast, winter's grasp and lightning are what I use the most currently. Horror is pretty decent, too. Question for people, how do you manage poisons? I tried them, the ones I did have a 1 minute duration and it's a bit of a pain to keep applying them. Do you guys buy a lot of flasks and herbs and just down one every battle? | ||
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GGTeMpLaR
United States7226 Posts
Completely immersed in the world. | ||
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Shauni
4077 Posts
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