Gromnir

"Also, like BG2, going the rogue route allows you to arguably build the best NPC team (unless you are going uber-mage)." am not sure we agree with the bg2 part (jan or imoen were excellent compliments to our party), but is definite true with da. the two jnpc rogues is built wrong. if you don't use respec (and Gromnir doesn't) then each o' the da rogues has 1/2 the talents and skills one would hope for in a rogue... so only way to get a good rogue is to build your own. rogues also require a greater spread of points across various abilities to be successful... can't just dump into willpower and magic as do mages. str, dex, cunning, and willpower is all very important for most rogue builds, and jnpcs simply not get enough points to be effective. our problem with the rogue is that as a class it is unnecessary. make the rogue talents and abilities general available and lose the "class." separate rogue serves no purpose... other than the wacky "overwhelmed" theory postulated. the problem with the 2h warrior is that it cannot be used as a tank. typical player probable wants to rush through the door first and be the leader both actual and geographic. a 2h warrior IS a warrior after all. is not some pansy rogue or mage, right? unfortunately, the 2h warrior, while very effective, is having much less versatility than the other warrior builds, and is also relative fragile. 2h is a big gun that can do extreme high consistent damage. with indomitable active your 2h warrior won't end up on his back or stunned during fights... is no lost combat rounds during which the 2h is failing to generate any damage. unfortunate, to be building a powerful 2h build you is pumping str and willpower... dex and con is useful, but placing points in these stats rob from the true potential o' the 2h warrior: dealing massive damage on a consistent basis. 2h is best v. high armour boss types, but probable seems like a dog v. mobs... and the mobs make up a majority o' the game... but the bosses is the toughest part o' the game. *shrug* however, as we pointed out earlier, we thinks that the enchantable weapons probable give edge to the dual wielder late in game as a clear best warrior build... and the best weapons seems to be 1-h in any event. best 2h weapon may be starfang. if you kill ser cat, her weapon is very nice, but is only tier 6 with two enchantment slots. the dragonslayer sword is neato, but is only 3 genuine tough dragon battles in game. ageless is ok v. darkspawn. there is one genuine powerful maul available real late in game, but is needed to be purchased, and it ain't cheap... and the best battleaxes simply suck compared to the greatswords. the 1h weapon selection is better, and you can potential equip 2 at once. is a double-whammy. Gromnir ain't a power-fiend who needs the best equipment and build to enjoy the game, but it does seem as if the 1-h weapons is superior, and a dw character can equip 2 of 'em. the way the character menu reads, a +4 to attack from an enchanted dagger in the off hand boosts attack for primary hand weapon as well... and such bonuses stack. 6 potential enchantments 'stead of 3, better selection o' weapons, and stacking effects from weapons gives the dual-wielder a serious advantage. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* this is getting ridiculous. pixel hunting would indeed add 200 hours-- using cursor to actual look at every spot in game would take At Least 200 hours. yutz. use tab is a way to avoid pixel hunting, and the trade-off is the mildly annoying 20-second tab routine. if you can't keep up, then just go back to spewing nonsense 'bout the inevitability o' overpowered mages... who ain't actual overpowered... or something similar. is tough to keep track o' your nonsense. in any event, why? elfroot, deathroot, and lootable corpses is clearly identified, but for some reason bio chose tab function for other stuff. is no challenge. is not fun. is simply an exercise in tedium. again, if search were attached to some skill or ability, then we could see usefulness of tab, but if is simple a mechanical response for the ocd crowd, then it does not improve game and should be corrected in bios next attempt at da. "On Normal that won't even bring a Rev's life down to 3/4s so... yeah." don't try to be reasonable. won't work. HA! Good Fun!

why? doesn't add to gameplay, and the biowarians has already supplied tab to reveal everything. the way we look for stuff is to hold down the tab button. maybe some dope pixel hunts with his cursor and adds 200 hours to game making sure he covered every conceivable spot in game, but Gromnir is not foolish to engage in such nonsense. the biowarians gave us the tab button, but tab only has a very limited range, so we effective gotta tab every few seconds o' gameplay... which we does. to what end? to stretch Gromnir's pinky finger? what is biowarian motivation? in bg2 there were hidden stuff too, but the biowarians made entire map subject to the tab function. we could be on other side of slums and use tab to recognize that there were a hidden object in the wall at the base o' the jansen home. there were no walk-20'-and-tab silliness in bg2. if "Look for stuff" made game more challenging or more fun, we would do so... but there ain't no challenge 'cause tab reveals all. and only vol could thinks 20'-n'-tab is adding to fun. if no challenge and no fun, then from game design pov there is no purpose, so why do it? is a somewhat tedious bit o' repetition... like arguing with vol. HA! Good Fun!

am not convinced by the zots argument. gay romances, which includes, as far as we can tell, additional dialogue resources and some rather disturbing animation, were less of a zots drain than simple give "torn note" and "phylactery" the same treatment as 1007able corpses? the diminishing return works in favor o' a feature that would benefit all v. one that would genuine only ever be accessed by some extremely small % o' purchasers. and in any event. the targetable stuff in bg2 were typical more obvious... and tab would reveal entire de-fogged map. in da, revealed stuff with tab is only in immediate proximity to player. Gromnir did not have to keep pinky on tab key for most o' bg2. HA! Good Fun!

display text, glow, whatever... corpses with 1007 glow and have sparklies. could make options menu toggle that would do something similar for objects capable o' interaction. for folks bothered by floating text or glow they could turn-off... and for those o' us who not see a genuine game purpose for rewarding constant tab depressions, we could have floating text or glow. HA! Good Fun!

On the third level, there's a broken statue with a black phylactery, IIRC. Yep. kinda makes you wonder why they even have the tab function. is relative easy to miss books and phylacteries and other such stuff, so Gromnir is pretty much holding down the tab key every few seconds. why even bother? why does game seeing reward people with ocd? if stuff were genuine hidden (required a skill or talent to identify hidden stuff) then am seeing a reason for tab key... but otherwise it simple seems like some way for biowarians to make game slightly more tedious, and am doubting that were the goal. HA! Good Fun!

maybe the admiralty caught her making big trouble for moose and squirrel. kept hearing natasha fatale when tali spoke. HA! Good Fun!

our knowledge o' the mysterious and reclusive kanadian sub-species is limited, but based on the many The Kids In the Hall skits we has seen, there should be sheep involved, no? HA! Good Fun!

am positive that the exit grid for dalish camp gots one. circle tower in hallway just before you encounter wynne for first time. orzamar before you enter proving grounds... and elsewhere. oten/orten/whatever thaig gots one... just after entering map, and right before you come upon that first ogre corpse. am not recalling one in haven, but am reasonably sure we got some chatter just before entering gauntlet. truth-to-tell, our party were extreme chatty. with all the backtracking we did to have the french girl open chests and dog "find" items, we musta heard every chatter option a few times 'cause jnpcs did begin repeating selves after a while. if Gromnir were wynne, we woulda' been mighty offended that allister kept asking her 'bout getting knocked up. very crass. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling that after nwn were released there were one regular poster who repeated lamented the absence o' customizable footwear and the paucity o' stylish non-armour outfits. is nothing wrong with being bothered by such stuff, but that were her primary complaint regarding nwn. everybody gots a different idea of what is important in a crpg. a nice man-bag that matches zeveran's antivan leather boots? *shudder* HA! Good Fun! ps am hoping that Gromnir weren't alone in hearing the ghost of ricardo montalban every time zev spoke of his antivan/corinthian leather.

it doesn't heal injuries of the caster... which seems more than passing odd. is similar to the templar's aura which don't remove adverse magical effects on the templar using the aura. Actually Leliana was the injured one. I read somewhere that it only heals injured partymembers that are closest to the caster. dunno. never had a problem getting anybody other than wynne healed... the french girl included. am thinking that the only jnpc that we didn't heal in this fashion were the dog. dog were rare in our party, but even when he were he rare took the 10-count. tough dog. anybody know if the templar and spirit healer auras is 'posed to be ineffectual regarding the caster? could be a balance thing, butt it seems counter-intuitive. HA! Good Fun!

is you making an effort to be an ass everytime you posts? we are guessing you is. Aw, jeez. For you and Google-impaired vol: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gay+purchasing+power edit: this gromnirspeak thing is tricky! you really is ssssllllloooooowwwww. even if each gay person could be able to buy trump tower and an 80' yacht it wouldn't make a damned bit o' difference to bioware and ea. Gromnir makes very good money, but am still only going to buy 1 copy. so again, for you and you developmentally challenged friends, gay purchase power is not noteworthy from the publisher point of view... which should be obvious to #... but isn't. HA! Good Fun!

What numbers have to add up? Alanschu said the characters were bisexual so the cost of including a gay romance can't have been that much, appealing to more people without a significant extra effort. It's not purchasing 10 copies, either, but DA on top of other stuff. But apparently BIO decided to cut the gay romance from ME2, so then again, maybe not. is you channeling vol? is you who mentioned insane purchase power of the gay gamer. if gay not take anything additional to add, then that is useful to know. regardless, the purchase power o' the gay gamer is limited by their relative small numbers. cost v. benefit is indeed affected by zots it takes to implement, but the purchase power o' gay gamers, as a group, is limited by their small numbers. is no insane purchase power from a publisher's pov. HA! Good Fun!

"(Except for the first revenant I fought, at redcliffe, which I was somewhat underleveled for)" you might not have felt undeleveled... if you were playing a 2h warrior. and yeah, compare pc to sten is not the best measure. also makes it tough with lack o' transparency o' rules. feels like 3:1 for dw v. 2h... feels like you is doing more damage. lord only knows what is reality. regardless, dr/armour is gonna impact the dw warrior significant more than the 2h. though your dw will be superior 'gainst light armed mobs. equipment does factor into the equation later in game. obvious difference: a dw warrior/rogue will have two weapons equipped and both weapons may have 3 enchantments. HA! Good Fun!

"I remember reading that the gay segment of the population has an insane purchasing power." unless every gay player is buying 10 copies, the numbers simply won't add up. HA! Good Fun!

it doesn't heal injuries of the caster... which seems more than passing odd. is similar to the templar's aura which don't remove adverse magical effects on the templar using the aura. "Ironically, he survives longer in combat than my walking panzer sword and shield guy, even when Sten is with me as the only other tank. Go figure. If you put Wynne and Sten together they're not a bad combo - Wynne keeps him (and everybody else) alive whilst Sten can put down large amounts of damage. It's just not optimal." 2h warriors is less than optimal tanks, but they is fantastic at doing big and consistent damage. we has seen folks complain 'bout the slowness of 2h swings... and indeed, they does "feel" as if your 2h fighter is perpetually under the influence o' some speed reducing effect. nevertheless, the folks who do the math and add up multiple dual-wielder strikes and compare to a single 2h strikes almost always ignore damage resistance. revenants, for example, seems to have very good damage resistance/armour. let us assume your early game dual wielder is doing 20 pts o' damage with main hand and 15 with off-hand. the 2h fighter at such point is easily doing 35-40 pts o' damage. if enemy armour is effective dr of 20, then your dual wielder is pretty much only doing damage on backstabs, and with additional elemental damage... or perhaps with armour penetration, which nobody has yet explained the mechanics of to Gromnir. the dw warrior could get in 100 strikes and he would still be doing 0 base damage. the 2h warrior, on the other hand, is still doing 15 to 20 pts base damage with every strike. 'course the trade off is that the 2h warrior has less optimal defenses. if you try to tank with sten, then wynne is constant having to cast heroic aura and heroic defense... and lots of heals. allister, with high dex and average strength has talents that already allows him to wade into combat and absorb punishment. revanants is actual a pretty effective test subject as those phials is in specific locations that may be triggered optional. play around with weapons 'n such and compare zeveran to sten. for much of game it is a big win for sten. HA! Good Fun!

am finding all game romances a tad... creepy. gay game romances not bother us any more than does the traditional varieties as we avoid both flavors with equal resolve. a long as we can avoid we don't genuine care. however, am gonna admit one final time that we were hopeful that da would not have gay romance. is not that Gromnir is offended by such material. while we thinks game romances is invariably juvenile and tacky, we recognize that they is popular and is now a non-negotiable feature in current and future bioware games. seems like a waste o' resources to add gay, but at same time we commented at bio (almost 5 years gone by now) that if they genuine felt strong 'bout gay romance they should add, and to hell with the detractors. we encouraged them to make the best damn gay romance they could. ... sadly, the gay minority at bio is no better than karzak was... but criticize gay board guerrillas gets one labeled as a gay basher, while criticizing karzak were deemed a public service. am not certain how many threads were hijacked by the Gay Liberation Front as they fought for equal rights or some such similar nonsense. took Gromnir out o' the "support" category and put us in the "mild disdain" group... didn't want the GLF to thinks they got their romance through incessant whining as such would only encourage similar behavior in the future. end rant. HA! Good Fun!

did you play the human noble origin? that would partial explain your feelings. much o' the human noble origin dialogue were so over-the-top it were almost camp. the thing is, the dialogue weren't necessary horrible as written, but with full vo and puppet-acting from somewhat awkward digital characters, the heartfelt moments came off as laughable. whoever wrote the human noble origin don't have much experience with drama... as 'posed to short story, novel and even game writing. write for actors who is gonna have to speak your written lines is a different skill set than writing short story dialogue. da writing is pretty good in parts and you does build up a tolerance to the way the digital actors don't seem to compliment the voice actor efforts... and some o' the vo is pretty darn good. ... oddly enough, while Gromnir likes the game, am not sure we would identify one o' the jnpcs as a favorite of ours. loghain (not the dog, whom we also named loghain) had potential, but didn't live up to the promise. the gift/influence min-game actually kinda diminished the appeal o' the characters and their stories as we always felt as if we were gaming our party mates. sten and morrigain offer signifficant development avenues for a sequel, but there were too much unresolved for us to genuine likes how they were presented in da:origins. the ubg (ultimate bad guy) were no more developed than the lizard queen from nwn. why? the sauron kinda thing only works if the villain is genuine remote. we see and fight the ubg, and yet the confrontation is an emotional let down. "that's it?" is a very good game, but the game has flaws... lots of flaws. big flaws. wacky mechanics, poor balance and some questionable story choices keeps da from being a spectacular game, but it is still a very good game... often in spite of itself. HA! Good Fun!

by andraste's saggy bosom you is a nutter. weren't 'posed to be "best," but a genuine observation. other than somebody who is willful obtuse we cannot imagine anybody that would contradict themselves so frequent... or suggest that bg2 infravision spell were anything other than the suck. btw, 'cause somebody asked we will list some of the spells we think us craptacular... am sure we can come up with more if we reflect, but Gromnir gotta get his turkey ready for tomorrow. -regeneration

am really beginning to believe that you are brain damaged. "You sound like the people who said a bunch of spells in BG2 were useless. They aren't. Just ebcause YOU don't find them useful (cause you didn't figure them out), doesn't mean they were useless." Gromnir identifies that there is many sucky spells. virumor points out a few such spells is prerequisites for other better spells, but that not make 'em any less sucky. and now you seems to admit that there is some lame spells in da, in spite of the previous "they aren't" observation. and yeah, there were a bunch o' sucky spells in bg2. why you think most sorcerer builds for bg2 looks the same? nobody in their right mind adds detect illusion or infravision to their limited sorcerer bg2 spell list... 'cept vol? you like pie. whatever. "i agree with a lot of what gromnir is saying here, but i should add that the respec mod takes a lot of the awful guesswork out of the equation. " respec is not part of the game. is a mod. as Gromnir has noted before, the respec mod alters game difficulty far more than does the difficulty slider. some o' the game developer choices for jnpc character skills and talents is absolute mind boggling, but that is how developers supposed balanced, so for the moment that is how we will play... though our level o' tolerance decreases when we see multiple jnpcs with with 4 tiers of freaking combat tactics skill. HA! Good Fun!

"One thing that frustrated me to no end with NWN1 was all the useless acid-traps which did 10-20-something hps. As a fighter I just walsed thru them and paid no attention. Now if the OC had a few original and completely lethal traps, playing a rogue might have been interesting. Or if a locked treasure-chamber was accessible only to an experienced thief." with a party of two and utilizing the D&D rules, such a thing were impossible. having genuine lethal traps when your 2-man party might be absent a thief would be resulting in more than a little player frustration. and use Conan the Destroyer as example is probably not your best approach. *shrug* like it or not, da is a combat heavy game. Most crpgs is combat focused. even thiefy skills is actual related to combat potential. why does you care what is in that locked and trapped chest? find gold or 10075. the gold and 10075 is used to improve your equipment... which makes you better in combat. in a pnp rpg you can play a gimped character and it can be fun... 'cause pnp role-play has very little in common with single-player crpg role-play. is no genuine cooperative and impromptu storytelling with a single-player crpg. very few crpgs is anything other than glorified tactical combat games... with some rpg elements thrown into the mix. da, in particular, is a combat intensive game. unlike the pnp role-play game in which playing the gimp can be fun, and dm/gm can tailor so as to keep fun, a combat crpg is somewhat less entertaining if it appears that like one class choice is clearly most efficacious in combat. alan observed that the game testers and bio folks believed that the most powerful da parties were three mages and a tank/meat shield. sorry, but that is bad design. can you make a game where every class is equal fun even if there is a disparity in combat power? sure you can... but with a combat heavy game like da... the crazy-stoopid aspect of da is that while mages is clear having the most potential power, they is also the most easy to gimp in character creation and advancement. there is some sucky da spells, regardless of what vol believes, and if you make some seemingly rational but wrong choices, your mage may be less than fun to play. is a fun game... but the biowarians developed a somewhat peculiar system with some serious balance issues. no doubt they can fix before da2... though am not sure they will. HA! Good Fun!

dunno, but with our particular chosen ending it would be tough to meaningful expand on the origin. were kinda dead-end, if you know what we mean. HA! Good Fun!

am beginning to see reasons why bio kept the da rules hidden. coherency & rationality o' bioware's rules is on par with fallout 3 combat mechanics: fun enough to play, but best left unseen. *groan* HA! Good Fun!

... huh? so a rogue taking coercion is wasted? mother puss bucket... &%$# HA! Good Fun!

we were thinking that it seemed odd that a high strength character would get the most dialogue options... 'cause with four levels o' coercion we got persuades and intimidates. we were hopeful that by raising cunning we would get some other kinda option... but seems to just be persuade and intimidate, and our 18 cunning warrior didn't seem to get less than our 11th level rogue with 28 cunning. am gonna continue pushing cunning for other reasons, but we were hopeful for more dialogue payoffs. am always wary 'bout using dialogue to avoid battles as bio (and other developers) seems to like to penalize players for doing so: reward less 1007 and less exp too. however, am pretty sure there were actual a couple dialogue detours that netted us additional exp, so that ain't so bad. HA! Good Fun!