Dragon Age: Origins

[Arkantos]

Originally Posted by Verterdegete

Well, i havent played Dragon Age yet. But from your comments people, it seems that its more of a Soap Opera than a game ...

It all depends on how you play it. There are dozens of hours of content and many, many things to do.

[Mordakai]

Yeah, you don't even have to give gifts or go the camp at all if you don't want to (although Enchanting your weapons is nice).

Hell, some people solo the game without party members at all, so there you go.

[Default]

Originally Posted by Arkantos

Went through the game as a DW warrior at first. Got bored and never finished it. Currently playing through it as an AW/BM mage and I must say, the difficulty is a joke. Definitely going to try nightmare out after I'm done with this.

How do you get bored with DW? Even on Normal you can't kill everything instantly, so you do have to go pick targets, flurry them down, and use your AoE properly. So far I have a DW Warrior, a 2H Warrior, and a DW Rogue all set up for Awakening, planning to use a Orlesian Mage to see what all the fuss is about, as I don't want to do Ostagar again for ONE LINE FROM JOWAN.

[Bryant Again]

Originally Posted by Default

How do you get bored with DW?

Momentum and/or Dual-Striking, right-click bad guy, kill real quick, right click next bad guy, hit 2 on occasion, reap benefits, win Insanity.

I don't play DA:O for it's combat. I might mod the hell out of it, though, since vanilla fights are really really boring.

[Arkantos]

Originally Posted by Default

How do you get bored with DW? Even on Normal you can't kill everything instantly, so you do have to go pick targets, flurry them down, and use your AoE properly. So far I have a DW Warrior, a 2H Warrior, and a DW Rogue all set up for Awakening, planning to use a Orlesian Mage to see what all the fuss is about, as I don't want to do Ostagar again for ONE LINE FROM JOWAN.

Oh I was plowing through the game quite easily on normal, I just....got bored. Playing an arcane warrior/blood mage on nightmare, however, is much less boring for me. Frustrating, but fun.


Recently beat it on nightmare, which, well, was no walk in the park. Trying to play through the stone prisoner now. I'm trying to do a golem's memories, but the only two places I can travel are camp and Honnleath. Any solutions?

[Bryant Again]

Lolnice, Awakenings gets SF!

"While this mode is active, the shadow flits in and out of concealment. Because enemies cannot concentrate on the character, each hit reduces their interest in the attacker. This mode consumes stamina continuously."

Should've been how SF worked in GW, would've been hilarious.

[Arkantos]

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

Lolnice, Awakenings gets SF!

"While this mode is active, the shadow flits in and out of concealment. Because enemies cannot concentrate on the character, each hit reduces their interest in the attacker. This mode consumes stamina continuously."

Should've been how SF worked in GW, would've been hilarious.

Why is it that every game with a skill called shadow form got it right, while ANet failed hard?

[Default]

Originally Posted by Arkantos

Why is it that every game with a skill called shadow form got it right, while ANet failed hard?

"We want this skill to basically be about being one with the shadow, any ideas guys?"

"A 20 minute invulnerability to everything?"

"THAT SOUNDS PERFECT"

[Default]

Anyone else playing Awakenings?

I've been avoiding forums because I don't want to spoil myself on the plot, I have a problem with RPGs where rather then do the smart thing and just play them, I always end up taking a peek at a few endgame topics, and ruin most of the endgame, and didn't want to do that with Awakening.

Its actually pretty cool so far, the new companions have alot more depth and character then the origin guys, and many of them are really fleshed out, I'm also loving the new conversation system, as I basically get rewarded for bringing people places, rather then having to steel myself for a 30 minute camp talk where I basically get rehashed codex entries about what the Templars are, or what the Wardens are before I can actually talk to them about interesting stuff.

Combat seems a bit better, I tried going in with three Mages and got stomped pretty hard, way to many enemies have anti-Mage stuff now for that to work. Also since many enemies ARE Mages, you have to plan things a bit more, at least for the first section of the game, I actually had to drop it from Nightmare to Hard, which is pretty crazy, although the new powers are kind of making me think I may switch it back up to Nightmare, as I'm turning into a killing machine.

I'm also liking the choice system, although it could use quite a bit of work, and I haven't seen much of it really, a few of the choices seemed to end fairly interestingly, and apparently according to the forums, you can't save everyone, and if you go stupid good, or thug evil, you will get screwed over by it, because Bioware finally stopped making their games easily beatable by just going PARAGON OF JUSTICE on everyone, and now you have to deal with traitors, badthings, and all sorts of problems.

So yeah, anyone else playing it? :O

[Juanele]

I have just started playing. Seems nice so far. I'll probably go through it slow, I have a tendancy to burn through games in a few days and then wonder why I spent $50 on 3 days entertainment.

[Masta Panda]

Anders FTW, also did anyone have Mhairi survive the joining?

[Default]

So, I tried playing a Mage.

How is this supposed to be fun/superpowerful again?

At first I went nearly full Primal, grabbing all the major big hitting spells, and trying to make my guy as magey as possible, I also grabbed haste, and then the Mind and Mana lines to add a bit of extra useful stuff to my spell list.

And it kind of sucked, I had nearly 40 Willpower and 52 Magic, and I could barely hurt anything, I'd use a gigantic AoE spell, the enemies would barely get scratched, while my team would end up half-dead from it, and thats not even the worst of it, I never seemed to have enough mana to take out anything, and even if I did, everything would always be on cooldown, leaving me to staff attack everything.

So I then decided to try Arcane Warrior, I heard alot of people talking about how great it was, so I went to try it out, I boosted my Magic up super high, gave myself a bit of extra constitution, and put the rest in Willpower, and it was even worse, now I barely had the mana to cast anything, due to Fatigue and lower Willpower, and going Haste + 2h was far weaker then any of the Warriors specs.

Kind of at a loss as to why I'm messing up so badly with Mage, when everything else thinks its the greatest thing ever. So far, the only thing it has worthwhile is Crushing Prison to use on casters, and then Cone of Cold to use on groups, but I can't kill the group before Cone of Cold wears off, and blarg.

[Olvi]

Originally Posted by Default

How is this supposed to be fun/superpowerful again?

Well I went with spells like Mind Blast, Crushing Prison, Winter's Graps, Cone of Cold, Forcefield, Walking Bomb...Pretty insane CC and burst damage at times. Walking Bomb especially surprised me with it's insanity when placed right. Just nuke+CC the big bad guys and then AOE the rest to death...and drink mana potions. A lot.

I tried going for the mana regeneration spells at first but found them more or less useless when compared to just drinking potions. After all, in all my playthroughs I had like 50 Health Poulstices and 50 Lyrium Potions all the time due to Herbalism...

I've only played the game througn on Normal difficulty and once on Easy for a quick import save run (LOL) and on Normal there were quite a few sudden-deaths on partymembers at times. A darkspawn would cast a glyph on them that prevented all healing and then an effing bligh wolf comes upon them with their BS Overwhelm. Then a few times a party member health would just drop to 0% from 75% or something for no obvious reason...so I can only imagine how the combat is on harder difficulties.

Oh and am yet to get my copy of Awakening, just like before, I'm expecting a detour of 1-2 days due to our location

[Default]

Originally Posted by Olvi

Well I went with spells like Mind Blast, Crushing Prison, Winter's Graps, Cone of Cold, Forcefield, Walking Bomb...Pretty insane CC and burst damage at times. Walking Bomb especially surprised me with it's insanity when placed right. Just nuke+CC the big bad guys and then AOE the rest to death...and drink mana potions. A lot.

I tried going for the mana regeneration spells at first but found them more or less useless when compared to just drinking potions. After all, in all my playthroughs I had like 50 Health Poulstices and 50 Lyrium Potions all the time due to Herbalism...

I've only played the game througn on Normal difficulty and once on Easy for a quick import save run (LOL) and on Normal there were quite a few sudden-deaths on partymembers at times. A darkspawn would cast a glyph on them that prevented all healing and then an effing bligh wolf comes upon them with their BS Overwhelm. Then a few times a party member health would just drop to 0% from 75% or something for no obvious reason...so I can only imagine how the combat is on harder difficulties.

Oh and am yet to get my copy of Awakening, just like before, I'm expecting a detour of 1-2 days due to our location

I don't mind the potion spamming, but how do you deal with the cooldowns?

When I tried going Primal, I had massive problems not really with mana, but with cooldowns, I'd throw everything I had at a group, and would barely bring them below 50%, then would have to just staff attack for the rest of the fight. I realize being able to do that much damage that fast is nice and all, but it was just really boring to have to sit back and autoattack for so long after wasting everything I had.

[Olvi]

Originally Posted by Default

I don't mind the potion spamming, but how do you deal with the cooldowns?

When I tried going Primal, I had massive problems not really with mana, but with cooldowns, I'd throw everything I had at a group, and would barely bring them below 50%, then would have to just staff attack for the rest of the fight. I realize being able to do that much damage that fast is nice and all, but it was just really boring to have to sit back and autoattack for so long after wasting everything I had.

I recall having similar problems especially when killing tougher monster...I guess the only solution would be to stuff you bar full of damage spells *shrug* In the end, despite of my own damage, Alistair and Dog prolly did the most killing seeing as they were constantly finishing off what I started...

[Arkhan]

Guys, don't forget to add a spoilertags.

[Regina Buenaobra]

Originally Posted by Default

So, I tried playing a Mage.

How is this supposed to be fun/superpowerful again?

At first I went nearly full Primal, grabbing all the major big hitting spells, and trying to make my guy as magey as possible, I also grabbed haste, and then the Mind and Mana lines to add a bit of extra useful stuff to my spell list.

And it kind of sucked, I had nearly 40 Willpower and 52 Magic, and I could barely hurt anything, I'd use a gigantic AoE spell, the enemies would barely get scratched, while my team would end up half-dead from it, and thats not even the worst of it, I never seemed to have enough mana to take out anything, and even if I did, everything would always be on cooldown, leaving me to staff attack everything.

So I then decided to try Arcane Warrior, I heard alot of people talking about how great it was, so I went to try it out, I boosted my Magic up super high, gave myself a bit of extra constitution, and put the rest in Willpower, and it was even worse, now I barely had the mana to cast anything, due to Fatigue and lower Willpower, and going Haste + 2h was far weaker then any of the Warriors specs.

Kind of at a loss as to why I'm messing up so badly with Mage, when everything else thinks its the greatest thing ever. So far, the only thing it has worthwhile is Crushing Prison to use on casters, and then Cone of Cold to use on groups, but I can't kill the group before Cone of Cold wears off, and blarg.

Were you putting some points into Dex? You need Dexterity to be able to hit things. It counts for accuracy of your spells.

I think you have to understand that the Arcane Warrior's role isn't to be the high damage dealer type of spellcaster. They're mage tanks. You should primarily be using your sword/shield, and using CC skills. That's how I played it, and it worked really well for me, anyway. Because of the smaller mana pool of an Arcane Warrior, they need to focus less on high-damage spells that cost a lot of mana, and instead focus on enchantment upkeep, which yes--gives them an even smaller mana pool, but that's made up by the damage output with their weapons (not staff, BTW) and their tanking abilities. Augument that with crowd control, and you have a good tank/CC mage. Arcane Warrior, the way I played it (which was effective) shouldn't be casting spells all the time.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Everyone has their own play style. Though having said that, one of my friends mentioned to me that he felt constrained by the game into playing in a specific way.

[Bryant Again]

Many if not all at my battles in Nightmare before I respecced Morrigan came down to me casting Blizzard at a choke point before the battle happened, aggroing all the badguys with it, and killing the stragglers that somehow manage to live through it with the rest of my party.

Easy sauce.

[Daniel]

Reporting threads on DA:A forums is srs bsns.



(source: here)

[Default]

Why is Terrorist Threat an option o.o

You know, for as much bitching as the Bioware boards are doing, this is actually a pretty nifty game, beginning had a bit of a rush to it, but overall, I'm having fun, and still haven't had a single problem any of these people have come up with, all my companions are working fine, all the quests are working fine, the pacing seems alright, although it did speed up a bit near the end, it wasn't THAT bad. Really my only complaint is the combat, and thats because the game went from somewhat difficult at Origins launch, to alright difficulty after they nerfed it, to me having 133 Strength, and having four AoEs thats damage is based on my Strength attribute, so I just kind of run in and kill everything solo now, even on Nightmare.

Then again, I think they expected me to be putting points in Dexterity or Willpower, or Constitution, or all those other silly dump stats.