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Dragon Age: Origins: Thread III [some SPOILERS]


Tobin

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Finished my first playthrough about a week ago. Loved the game but was disappointed with a few things; like the final battle against the Archdemon. Wow. I had more trouble with random bandit/darkspawn encounters. Also; the ending to the Alistair romance. And then there's the difficulty scaling... Wtf man.

I was a Dalish Rogue (--> Ranger and Duellist) called Ereyn. My Dog was Thor. I was half and half dual daggers and ranged.

There were a couple of battles where I had to put it down to easy. I think I clocked out at 52 or so hours- not counting the ridiculous amount of reloading of course- and that was doing everything other than the Mage's Collective quests. Where on earth did the 80 hour estimates come from?

I'm playing Mass Effect to fill up time before I start my next play through when we finally get the internet at home so I can get Shale. Also; next time totally playing a Mage. My partner is on run #2 already as a mage (he was a warrior last time), and just from watching him... He is caning everything in his path. What the hell.

PS: I love Alistair. I'm so pissed about the romance ending- if you don't want to be a pushy power hungry bitch. REWARD ME FOR MY MORALITY BIOWARE GODDAMN. From the previews I thought I'd hate the guy, but he actually turned out really lovable (I thought). I don't so much like the whining, but the emotional aspect of his character is great. 100x better than the other femalePC romance choices than other Bioware Games. It took me a long time to like Morrigan, but I finally got her near the end of the game, when I actually bothered to talk to her at all. I'm not particularly fond of Leliana or Wynne, but I like the other Male party characters.

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And then there's the difficulty scaling... Wtf man.

There's difficulty scaling? Most of my time in the Brecilian Forest was spent going, "Wow, I'm totally pwning these dudes," which I assumed was because I'd done Redcliffe and the Circle first, and thereby gained relative badassery.

Er. Unless you're talking about the difficulty levels?

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There's difficulty scaling? Most of my time in the Brecilian Forest was spent going, "Wow, I'm totally pwning these dudes," which I assumed was because I'd done Redcliffe and the Circle first, and thereby gained relative badassery.

It scales to some extent, but the scaling is fairly complicated and there are floors and ceilings. You can read more about it here.

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Gonna try earthquake, which I forgot I had (I wish you could fill your screen with task bars, like in WoW - hopefully a patch will add that feature), also I think Morrigan has cone of cold now, so got to try that.

The thing about archers is that they're clustered and immobile and away from your party members. Which means all the area of effect spells that you never use because you'll blow up (or incapacitate) your tank...yeah, that's the time for them.

ETA: Ah, thanks Alth.

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Hah, sorry Max, I was talking about the difficulty levels and not actual scaling (I didn't even really notice the scaling), I just used completely the wrong term. Half the time on normal it was a cakewalk, but other times I got absolutely slaughtered. I remember when I was in the Fade having no trouble taking out a room full of demons but three or so mages taking me down easily.

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Mages are just the killers of Dragon Age through, you generally can't afford to let an npc mage remain unmolested or eat so many of the annoying curses that will drop your tank/healer in short order.

Thats why I'd recommend getting something like crushing prison to deal with them, walk into a battle look for the hardest mob, trap it for a largish time while you beat the enemy down, hell fireball is generally a good idea on them as well.

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The thing about archers is that they're clustered and immobile and away from your party members. Which means all the area of effect spells that you never use because you'll blow up (or incapacitate) your tank...yeah, that's the time for them.

Yeah, I know how to use the area effects. I'd already been using fireball and cone of fire spell (whatever it's called).

I actually just got the Urn and awakened the Arl, so now it's off to actually use my treaties. Mage's circle next, then elves, then dwarves, I think.

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I actually just got the Urn and awakened the Arl, so now it's off to actually use my treaties. Mage's circle next, then elves, then dwarves, I think.

Spoilerish tip:

SPOILER: dragon age
Go to the dwarves first, you get a new character out of the deal who you might want to use in the other quests
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Huh. Been too busy playing Dragon Age to read message boards. I'm just now starting to lose the obsessive interest. Guess the love is still strong here.

Re: Tormund's advice: if you check the page on difficulty scaling above, you'll see that maybe it's not the best advice after all.

Anyway, what constantly befuddles me about this game (or rather, about the discussion about this game) is the wildly varying opinions about its difficulty.

Some of you may recall that a while back I got a bunch of shit in the video games thread for feeling that Mass Effect was a bit frustratingly difficult. Not 'I can't beat this' difficult, exactly, but more 'I don't want to bother to beat this.' More 'I just died out of nowhere and I have no idea why but I'll just push quickload and try again and then I probably won't randomly explode' difficult. Apparently Mass Effect is a notoriously easy game. And I'm not hopeless at FPS in general (at least, with keyboard+mouse), so I know enough to know that it wasn't genre-specific ineptitude.

So armed with full awareness of my own incompetence, and with the early reports that Dragon Age is fiendishly difficult even on Easy, I naturally started in on Easy. Then I wondered when the challenge started. Then I pumped it up to Medium. Then Hard. Then Nightmare. I'm still wondering. Occasionally there's a fight that actually has some tension to it rather than just select my party and focus fire people down until they all die, or tank and spank some orange guy with really easy to avoid abilities (this includes dragons and revenants), but it's pretty rare. Granted, I haven't tried the hardest fights (Gaxxkang, Cauthrien, Archdemon) above Medium yet, but I've completely breezed through several others that many people have trouble with (lesser Revenants, Sloth, High Dragons, Anvil of the Void final battle - though the Spirit Apparatus on Nightmare was the hardest fight I've yet encountered, possibly due to not knowing how exactly it worked.)

It occurs to me that perhaps the defining factor isn't so much general game or RPG competence, but MMO experience. Many of the things people have trouble with (archers! mages!) are fairly easily dealt with using tactics that are basic in MMOs, but many people (including many MMO players that don't put in the time or effort to pass the facerolling level) just never pay attention to. Kill the most dangerous and/or softest targets first. Crowd control everything you can unless it's trivial. Focus fire unless it's trivial. Don't stand in the fucking fire. Don't leave home without proper consumables. Don't charge the enemies, let them charge you. Any kind of multiple target crowd control is ridiculously good. Damage dealers are for dealing damage; giving up 20 armor on your rogue is worth it if it adds 1 damage. It's all pretty much common sense, but even so, it doesn't pop full-formed into your head; there's still a lot of trial and error involved in getting these concepts to become second nature, and I put in my trial and error years ago.

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Man, how hard those 3 drakes are.

I manage to kill one and a half of them, but it is as far as it goes for me.

However, I've not tried with my strongest party (didn't took Morrigan and Shale with me :bang: )

I'll be back Drakos , be afraid... Be very afraid... :devil:

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MMORPG experience does help a lot, it's true. I'm by no means very experienced with those games, but getting one guy up to level 58 in WoW, and playing several others up to the 20's and 30's was enough to help me understand the basics and now that I actually have a decent range of crowd control and area attack spells, my combats have suddenly gotten MUCH easier. I'm really kind of rolling through the Circle Tower right now, only one combat got a bit hairy, but not really...just a bit. I only stopped cause my game crashed (I get a lot of crashes, honestly - not sure why). I saved moments before, so no biggie.

I do need to get Shale, kind of forgot about that. Getting Wynne in the party for the tower makes me realize how good a healer really is. I was relying on potions only up til now...might have to start giving my PC some healing (PC is a mage, but I've also been playing with Morrigan). I guess I could just switch over Morrigan to Wynne, but I'd been working so hard to build my rapport with Morrigan thus far, it feels a bit of a waste.

Man, how hard those 3 drakes are.

I manage to kill one and a half of them, but it is as far as it goes for me.

I tried them twice, then decided it maybe wasn't worth it. First time I came really close to beating them, took out 2 and lost only one character, had he last one on the ropes, then it just all kind of fell apart. Very close. Next try was a mess and I just barely got one down before the other two just ripped me apart.

That whole adventure was super-duper fun, though. Very satisfying quest.

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Hearing about Wynne here makes me sad.....

SPOILER: Wynne
We talked and she attacked me for harboring an apostate mage during the Circle quest. So I fireballed her ass. The more I read abouther usefulness the more I want to cry, cause I am in the middle of the Deep Roads with too few potions
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I love Wynne. And Alistair. And Leliana. They've been my constant party all the way through. I find taking control of Wynne and just doing an MMO healing role with her whilst letting the others bash the enemy to death isn't a bad strategy, though I'm only playing on Normal.

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I realised only yesterday that the various "landmarks" are there for the dog to mark an area as his territory and get a combat bonus. :lol:

Another funny bit I haven't seen anyone mention so far was summoning Arl Foreshadow (any relation to the Faerûnian lord of the same name, I wonder?) and picking his pocket to get a note in the journal hinting at future stories set in Orlais or a search for the Elven city of Arlathan.

One of the loading screen tips recommends that you "go for the eyes" as well.

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I realised only yesterday that the various "landmarks" are there for the dog to mark an area as his territory and get a combat bonus. :lol:

Hah, really? I've never taken my dog as a party member since the very beginning. Must try that during another playthrough.

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Is Shale only accessible through downloaded content? It has to be; I did a pretty thorough run-through of the game and there wasn't so much as a mention.

Blast!

It's DLC, yes, but in every new copy of the game you buy they give you an unlock code to donwload shale so you don't have to pay the $20 or w/e it is.

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