deganawida
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Posts posted by deganawida
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So, has anyone used Shale extensively? If so, does he comment on various things like the normal NPCs do? I like Shale, and find him to be an incredibly useful party member (in that he can easily switch roles in combat), but I love the banter in the game, and would hate to give it up.
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Confused about Leliana. I bedded morg and when she started getting all psycho on me dumped her for Leliana. I got lil to 100 rated labeled as 'love'. She has not made a move on my pc and won't let me make a move on her. soooo... is morg the easy girl and Leliana the overly hard to get girl? I am just confused as to the point so far of a 'romance' with Leliana. At least with morg if I wanted to get involved with her drama the relationship was clearly going somewhere at least. Seems im 'dating' a nun with Leliana. Does anything happen down the road?
Heh, reminds me of dating in college. Yes, Leliana is the sweet girl that won't give it up until there's a commitment. Morrigan's the wild girl that you meet at the club, invites you to the parking lot, shags your brains out, and then doesn't say much when you go to ask the hot nice girl to dance.
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You couldn't even beat the ogre without the golem morph, so it's not like you have a choice.
Huh? I took him down on Hard with my warrior in no form and still had half my HP left when I got done. He was a piece of cake compared to the one in the Tower of Ishakal. My warrior wasn't even particularly optimized, as I had made some poor decisions in talent choices (one of the reasons I'm restarting yet again), and was only level 10 or 11. In fact, the only form I used when fighting any of those bosses was the Burning Man form, and that was for the rage demon.
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Leliana's Pinning Shot temporarily stops a mage, and then it's possible to run up there and kick ass. Scattering Shot is even better.
I did not know that. I'll have to have her use that a lot more.
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^ Meh, the Darkspawn don't exactly strike me as the disciplined, Blitzkrieg types. More like maraud, torture, feed, sleep, probably fight among themselves for a bit. Go backwards, torture a squirrel... they're like zombies with a bit of army training.
Mages own this game, it's very mage-centric. My main character taunts, everyone attacks him, he uses the fortress shield ability (I am a one-warrior Roman army tortoise formation) and Morrigan dances around freezing, smashing, burning with glee. I am just the bait.
Still enjoying it, very good game. It could have been truly great, but...
Yes mages own the game on both sides. Any battle with enemy mages where you don't have one of your own is extremely extremely difficult. Having a PC thats a mage drops the difficulty down a level.
That and most of the specializations are useless. With better class balance would have been one of the true greats IMO.
Best method for dealing with enemy mages without one of your own is to have your tank run up and shield bash him ASAP. That stops the initial salvo of spells.
Granted, that only works on one mage at a time, and sometimes you can't get to the mage quickly enough...
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Fascist!
Seriously, okay, I restarted my run recently on hard. I had not really gotten that far in my first run and I found out right away that it is harder than NWN but I wouldn't mind playing it on hard. Mostly, I just wanted to test some thing between games. For example, the difference in experience between normal and hard when facing the ogre, ect.
I got out into the wilds and, lo and behold, I had accidently decided to make it just a leeetle bit harder by not equiping my mage staff. I'm like, "why the hell does my pc keep running at things and beating on them with her fist?" Yep, no staff. Now, the staff bolts aren't exactly the battle ending beat sticks that some mages might think them to be, but they sure as hell work better than my mage's butter first smackdown of comedy. I'm going to finish the wilds and go buy back my staff before I do anything else. I've had two injuries so far and I'm over halfway done with the wilds. Not much worse so far, but I think the part after the battle will be much worse. We'll see.
I'm playing on hard, as well. It's required me to reload a few fights, most notably the first fight on the first floor of the Tower of Ishakal, the top floor of same, some of the random encounters, and the third group of bandits in Lothering. I ended up passing up on
Flemeth
for the time being, though I had no problem with
the high dragon at the sacred urn temple
. I think part of that is my party configuration at the time. Oh, and
I had an incredibly hard time taking the blood mage through the Fade to save Conner, as he had no items and his only heal was Drain Life.
I do lose someone in a fight at least 20% of the time, so I use the injury kits. This is very different from my first aborted play-through, when I tried normal difficulty. On normal difficulty, it felt as though I were steamrolling through everything. This doesn't mean that the game is too easy, just that normal was too easy for me.
All that said, I am restarting tonight. I unlocked Berserker and Champion last night, and I think that's the way I want to go with my sword'n'board warrior PC. Sword and shield really rocks in this game, doing good damage and having fantastic animations. Kudos to Bio for that.
I also feel compelled to state that thus far DA is better than BG2 to me. That's saying a lot, as BG2 is in my top five favorite games, and one which I played continuously for four years. Bio seems to deserve the praise which this game has received, and I for one am glad for this little shout-out to their older fans.
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Is there any reason to re-enter it?Why not just leave the door open so peole can wander arond and feel like they now "own" it?If not then I would assume they just figured nobody would want to.
So they purposely made extra work for themselves because the felt nobody would ever want to reenter the Keep they just bought and quested through? C'mon.
*shrugs*
They probably just didn't think about it, Or maybe they meant to and forgot. Maybe it's a bug.
Mybe they are planning a second dlc that actually makes it re-enterable or something.
That's my guess.
If you save Avernus, you can give him the option to continue his research. I haven't heard back from him, but if I haven't by the end of the game, then I'll assume that there'll be a sequel DLC to it.
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A dwarf at the Denerim market sells the Berserker book.
Ah, I haven't been to Denerim yet, though that's where I'm headed as part of the Redcliffe saga. Thanks!
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I'm level 10 and I've yet to meet the 'trainer' to become a Champion... anyone know where (s)he is? Maybe I should become a Templar instead...
You have to finish Redcliffe completely. That's how I got it. My character went Templar/Berserker, but I think Champion/Templar would be the most powerful combo. Templars are very effective in fights with mages and the Champion increases abilities etc.
I didn't find the berserker's skills very useful. I think they were going for increased damage output at the cost of reduced defense & stamina, but enemies have so much HP anyways and they tend to swarm so basically you just die.
I think a good defense is much better than a good offense in DA.
Where did you find the Berserker book or trainer? I've gotten Templar, Ranger, and Bard, and am closing on Champion, but I really want to unlock Berserker, too.
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"sounds like gromnir is developing a bit of a crush on a certain young hot n manly college boy... "
no... but admitting that we feels a great deal of envy for those folks who enjoyed their 4-5 liberal arts education/vacation. sounds critical, but isn't. honest, if we could do all over again, we woulda' taken advantage o' those college years to do more than study, work, and play ball.
to stay on-topic, Gromnir rarely understands the graphics wh0res who dissect screen shots. silly big weapons is... silly. *shug* is hardly something that is gonna discourage us from playing or enjoying. is a couple o' fantasy crpgs that don't use over-sized weapons, and they suck. Gromnir dealt with wacky big weapons in ps:t, bg, nwn2 and a host o' other crpgs we did like. am too tired to be bothered by big weapons, particularly as da does not appear to have reached the excessive anime standard for such things. excessive blood spatter is also a bit cheezy, but the persistent blood can be disabled, no?
HA! Good Fun!
My problem with the big weapons isn't the size, but the speed. I mean, your average zweihander weighs 7 lbs and 2-6 oz., but the way they swing those things in Dragon Age, they look like they weigh over 100 lbs. It's very slow and ungainly.
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That should make deganawida's day haha.
LOL, ya
Thanks, Maria and Allan! -
The cutscenes are another. The blood animations are so bad that I hope when they de-brief the game somebody does a walk of shame.
The blood in
the scene where Teyrn Cousland dies
is especially egregious.
Anyone who'd lost that much blood would be dead already, yet he's holding himself up and talking.
Other than the blood issue, trying to find the perfect face (the character creator didn't help me with that, as what looks good in it looks stupid in the game when compared to NPCs), and trying to figure out if sword'n'board will let me do some decent damage, I'm having a grand ole time. It's like BG2 all over again right now, which makes it totally worth it.
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deganawida:
1) Is DW as powerful in the actual game as it is in Journeys? In Journeys, the absolute best path to pick for the warrior is DW; SnB is good for defense only, and TH has one good attack that you can get. I'd hate to play another game where DW is the be-all and end-all of combat.
For a warrior, I find the best damage dealing is the Two-handed weapon tree. Your attacks are a bit slower, but you'll not suffer as much for mitigation, and you get some handy CC and armor penetration type abilities too. To be honest though, I didn't dual wield much with the warrior. But I think that dual-wielding is better suited for rogues, as the abilities tend to require dexterity. The consensus around the office was that two-handed warriors were solid damage dealers though.
2) What type of advanced classes are there for warriors? Which do you think is most interesting or powerful?
Admittedly I am only familiar with two of the specialty classes for warriors. Templar and Champion. I think Champion is very powerful, with some good buffs for the whole party to boot. Templar seemed okay, but it didn't really catch my eye. Reaver seemed quite interesting. By the time I learned how to get it (a spoiler for a different question) though, I was long past the point. Most of the specializations have a book form that you can find if you miss the "story" way of learning it, but I either didn't find it, or was too broke to buy it. I like heroic characters though, so champion fit my Alistair quite nicely!
3) Is it better to have a well-balanced character, or a specialized character?
Typically "specialized" is better. Though when I say specialized, I mean within a particular tree, and it's pretty obvious. I mean, if you're dual wielding, you'll pick the Dual Wield abilities and whatnot. As a mage though, I don't think specialization in a tree is necessary. The most powerful spells are typically at the end of the 4-part trees, so with some exceptions check out the ones you like. A variety of damage/CC/heal will make the caster very versatile. I found focusing exclusively on damage though, was typically a poor build for mages. CC is pretty useful I find.
Thanks! A couple of follow-ups:
~1) How does two-handed compare with sword'n'board, both damage-wise and tanking-wise? Basically, can one tank as either build?
~3) Is it better to specialize your attributes, as well? Basically, should a warrior always go strength and constitution?
Sorry that my questions are less about actual spoilers, and more about gameplay. It's a new rule system, so I want to know what I'm getting into
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The thing I sooo love about not being in school is that a lot of those deadlines don't approach anymore.
Oh, if anyone has any questions about the game if they are stuck, or want some advice/suggestions/perspective, I don't mind sharing. I'll quote the post with a spoiler tagged response.
I'll take you up on that offer.
1) Is DW as powerful in the actual game as it is in Journeys? In Journeys, the absolute best path to pick for the warrior is DW; SnB is good for defense only, and TH has one good attack that you can get. I'd hate to play another game where DW is the be-all and end-all of combat.
2) What type of advanced classes are there for warriors? Which do you think is most interesting or powerful?
3) Is it better to have a well-balanced character, or a specialized character?
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So, anyone who ordered from Amazon received shipping confirmation yet? I paid for the regular copy with release-date shipping (did not want to wait until the middle of the month for CE to arrive), and I haven't gotten my confirmation yet. My order states that it's shipping soon, though.
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wth happened in here o.O.
The thread's been attacked by thread pirates! Man the poopvdeck!
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(which is taught in elementary school btw, hence my example)
Is it?
It's been so long I don't remember when I learned that.
Seriously, it would have been better to just explain that you never stated your opinion as a fact rather than some weird example to try to prove a point, hoping he understand what point you're trying to make.
I didn't learn that I had to be concise until post-secondary though
And I still suck at it haha.
Suck at what? Being concise, or post-secondary education?
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Graphics is the worst con in that list as it's definately gonna cost Bioware some sales. In Bioware boards there's tons of people who scream how graphics don't matter but for the majority they do matter. I probably should say that graphics don't matter to me either as I started to play CRPGs when ASCII or few blobs in the screen were "the thing" but I'd lie in that case. I enjoy good gtaphics and even more good art design. Dragon Age don't have either of 'em. Then again, graphics are not that bad that I'd skip the game entirely for that reason.
You shouldn't feel that you have to qualify your enjoyment of graphics. Video games are, in large part, a visual medium, and so graphics are an important part of the whole package. The problem comes from some reviewers and players who seem to think that good graphics equate automatically to a good game, and ignore gameplay.
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From what I've read at Codex (plenty of Polish speakers there it seems), the 1st and 2nd con are also one, i.e. 'old school graphics'. Don't know what that's supposed to mean. Maybe the graphics isn't shiny, glowy, bloomy enough to be 'new school'?
They probably meant "dated". It's the only thing I can think of that would make sense there, since we are not talking about 2D sprites.
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^Ah, good old Tony DiTerlizzi. I love his style. It's what gave Planescape a special place in my heart.
If you enjoy his art, you ought to check out "The Spiderwick Chronicles" (the books, not the movie). Though it's classified as young adult literature, it's actually a good little take, and it's all illustrated (and co-written) by DiTerlizzi.
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Sounds like Antonio Banderas. If so, wouldn't be his first VA gig.
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^ The hype is there, we probably view it differently.
As for the length of the game, am I alone in incessant re-starting? I'll do ten hours then realise that my character build is wrong. Start again. Rinse and repeat. This is my first 20-30 hours of play time, and for this reason alone I'm sure DA:O for me might well be 100 hours.
No, I do the same thing. My wife teases me relentlessly about it. It usually takes me the first week to get my character the way I want it, and then I tend to fly through the game.
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I heard Liara has the Tribbles....
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Finally, who's the Asari with Shepard? Any new romances for Shepard?
I thought that was Liara.
Apparently there's a new crazy Cerberus girl named "Miranda" as romance.
If it is, then they've either given her a new voice actress, or the voice actress from the first decided to make her voice significantly harder.
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Thanks!