metsu

I enjoyed this approach a lot in Dragon Age 2. Been a while since I played ME 3 but I think NPCs got unique abilities in that as well. Not only does it make gameplay more fun but it's also a cool narrative tool that informs us about the character. Kill two birds with one stone.

I will admit I find it a tad odd and surprising to see that Obsidian chose to censor the limerick, seeing as how this is the company that produced Caesar's Legion and Durance. Both of them preach about how conflict or "fires" can make you stronger while burning away the weak and unworthy. With stories like that, you think they'd have a mentality of how the world is harsh and you need to be willing to face that some people can and will offend you, but you need to be able to carry on. But again I'm a realist and I'm sure this was a decision made (decision to even ask Firedorn) moreso in the interest of marketing. Companies are notorious for being a place for ideologies to die. wat Here we go again guise. The last two pages wasn't enough obviously. I'm just a little surprised at the logical leap you made. Apparently if someone writes about homicidal wasteland slavers, it must follow that they're sympathetic to homicidal wasteland slavers and ascribe to their worldview. But you went one step further and extrapolated that to mean Obsidian would deal with game criticism the same way that homicidal wasteland slavers would deal with it. I mean come on. You're obviously a fan of New Vegas. I remember watching a YouTube video Josh put up about research. When he was working on Honest Hearts, he hit the gun range hardcore and started immersing himself in Mormon literature despite being a stone cold atheist. By the end, his stances on firearms and faith hadn't changed, but it helped him write religious, gun-wielding characters that felt like real people instead of parodies, at least to the best of his ability. By your logic though. . .

I think I did all the possible side content that was offered up until that point. I went through Valewood, Gilded Vale (and the temple in there), Magran's Fork, Esternwood, Black Meadow, and Anslog's Compass. But even when I reached Caed Nua, I was still getting owned on Hard. Abilities would always miss or resist, especially Mental Binding, and my party was all around Level 4. I set it to Normal but that made it too easy. Given that this is an RPG, I just assumed that all the misses meant I was too low level to do a certain piece of content but there wasn't anything else for me to do. To be honest, tabletop-based combat systems are not really my cup of tea. What made me enjoy Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, and Fallout was the writing. The combat was just something I tolerated to varying degrees.

I will admit I find it a tad odd and surprising to see that Obsidian chose to censor the limerick, seeing as how this is the company that produced Caesar's Legion and Durance. Both of them preach about how conflict or "fires" can make you stronger while burning away the weak and unworthy. With stories like that, you think they'd have a mentality of how the world is harsh and you need to be willing to face that some people can and will offend you, but you need to be able to carry on. But again I'm a realist and I'm sure this was a decision made (decision to even ask Firedorn) moreso in the interest of marketing. Companies are notorious for being a place for ideologies to die. wat

That's the party I usually run with at that point, and it's really good for dealing with those shadows. *The Cipher should Mental Binding anything that hops on anyone that's not your frontline. Mind Blades will also ruin the shadows at that level. *Eder's knockdown is really helpful in those fights. *Kana has Reny Daret's Ghost and/or Bones Under The Hill to bring the odds more into your favor. Also, if you picked any of the Cipher foe beam spells, you can link with one of Kana's summons (placed in the enemies backline), or a Ranger's pet, and basically solo the packs by running them around like fools. *Durance really does well with Iconic Projection, Repulsing Seal, and healing during these fights. Thanks for the tips. I'll give it another shot but I kept getting overwhelmed on Hard and getting my abilities resisted. Mental Binding barely worked most of the time.

The shadow fights are not the reference point for all discussions about difficulty. Shadows are a bitch and everyone hates them (or loves them for the challenge). You're still in act 1? In that case, the problem hasn't manifested for you yet. We are talking act 2 and act 3 mostly. Act 1 is pretty decent balancing-wise. Why wouldn't they be if they're practically all you fight in Act 1?

You guys must be pretty beast at this game because I completed every side quest I could find before Cad Nua and I kept getting owned by the ghost mobs. They randomly teleport to the DPS in my party and start wailing on them. After just a few hits, they're dead and Eder is standing around with his balls in his hand and no idea what to do. I started the game on Hard and wimped out and knocked it down to Normal. After that, the game was much more manageable but also way too easy. Tabletop-derived RPGs are much more mechanics-based than they are strategic so I dunno what the deal was. My characters constantly kept missing their attacks even with buffs and targeting weaknesses. Aloth couldn't get any fire casts off on the ghost mobs cause he'd get ganged up as soon as he started casting. My party is level 3-4. PC is Cipher with Eder, Aloth, Durance, and Kana.

It does play best with a controller, but other than that it is a very good game that improves greatly on DA2. It suffers from having a bit too much to do, actually. You'll burn yourself out trying to finish all the side stuff, but the main story and cast of characters are pretty entertaining. It also looked great on my PC, even better than it did on my PS4. Yeah I got completely burned out by it. I sank in something like 40 hours and I was still nowhere near being done with the game. At that point, I called it quits. I get that all this side content is optional but I find that an inherent flaw of game design. Nothing should feel optional to the player. You should want to do all the stuff the game offers, because if not, what's the point of putting it in the game? None of the side quests felt meaningful or compelling. It was just a bunch of generic fetch and kill quests. Which brought up another grievance: If they dedicated this much time to making trivial, generic side quests, to the point where it occupies 70% of your game time, it meant that these are all resources that could have gone to making the main campaign even better. Mass Effect did side content pretty well. Usually it was devoted to character development, funny, just entertaining in some way beyond "do this thing". It could have also been that the combat was pretty enjoyable from 2 and on. Combat in Inquisition was... Underwhelming.

Yeah, I want to echo this sentiment. Hearth orlan makes can choose from like... One portrait.

Gentleman Pugilist of the Obsidian Order! Thank you!

Maybe a ranged rogue? There don't seem to be many rogues in the game. I made a cipher but I'm pumping a lot of points into mechanics cause I haven't found a party member yet to make up the difference and I don't want to use any no-name NPCs.

Having a tough time in the beginning right now with my cipher, but I'm also playing on hard. Maybe Eder just isn't being very tanky yet. I'm gonna swap back and forth between this dude and a rogue to measure the difference.

Thanks for these tips. I just started the game as a cipher and he gets mobbed so early!

Yeah, cause God forbid that the option for player character diversity extends to non-player characters.

Went with Steam for the cloud saves.