Gromnir

am going through as a rogue. am curious to see if cunning makes serious differences in dialogues (not much so far) and am also so disappointed with available rogues that making our own seems like ideal solution. that being said, for people who respec'd their jnpcs, we can see why mage would be the obvious choice on a second playthrough. HA! Good Fun!

the problem with such a solution is that it makes game easier. hardcore folks is the ones who most often complain 'bout ease of game... so you make purchasable stuff that leads to even further reduced difficulty. is maybe not the ideal solution to the problem, no? developers is faced with problem of making money disappear, without significant altering game balance. is not as easy as it would appear to be at first blush. even so, ultra expensive (relative speaking) backpack space is an odd choice. am finding it hard to believe that it were bio's best solution, or even a solution. HA! Good Fun!

if inventory management added to gameplay we would concede that there were a point. if, as were suggested by bio bosses at some point, there were technical limitations on inventory, we could also understand. however, with extra backpack space being purchasable the technical limitations argument goes out the window, and am not seeing a gameplay function neither. to avoid the sheer tedium of retracing steps through cleared maps and 1007ing corpses and chests, you can purchase extra backpack space? wow. great feature. heck, at least most games tie inventory to an ability score. ... dragon age ain't as open-ended as some (many) games, but is still difficult to balance the money aspect. there gotta be enough money for people who does the critical path to feels like they is adequate rewarded, but those folks who does all the side-quests inevitably end up with a surplus o' funds. is a dilemma. bioware solution: expensive backpack space? the critical path players who runs through game probable don't need or care 'bout backpack space. on the other hand, the hardcore players will squeeze every copper out o' the game, and 1007 every chest... even if those chests got nothing worth noting in 'em. the folks who Need backpack space is thus the people most likely able to afford backpack space. is hardly a clever solution to the gold surplus problem some games suffer from. is not even a genuine solution, save near start of game when gold surplus is rarely an issue in Most games. am not sure whose idea it were, but the bioware inventory solution (buy 10 slots o' inventory for 5 or 7 gold) is, whether you is bothered by it or not, a hamfisted solution that lacks... style. is maybe not a insanely stoopid as the combat tactics SKILL (of which wynne had all four tiers when we met her in tower), but it is a very clumsy solution. and vol is not wrong 100% o' the time... it just seems that way at times. HA! Good Fun!

... tell us again how wonderful the mako stuff were in ME and how magic in a Game is necessary unbalanced. is always some new silliness right 'round the corner when vol posts. bah. vol likes pie. is easier that way. HA! Good Fun!

I think that an idea where continued focus in a particular school of magic improves the potency of all spells in that school of magic would have been an interesting way of doing things. I was under the impression that heavy investment in each of the 4 major groupings (elemental, spirit, entropy, and whatever) would decrease the mana costs of the spells contained therein. But that's less significant than an increase in potency would have been-- you can always address cost issues with lyrium potions. most of the mana/stamina cost features o' the game seem poorly conceived. no doubt mass rejuvenate does... something, but for a tier 4 spell it were laughable. am understanding why there is virtual no stamina regenerating options in the game. death blow + potions o' greater stamina would be ridiculous, no? our 2-h fighter were doing base damage in excess o' 60 midway through game. if he could use mighty blow with wild abandon the game would become somewhat busted. even so, as a player, the lure o' mana/stamina regeneration replenishment magic were high and we eagerly jumped at such options... only to find out that such spells and features were... impotent. lack o' rules transparency made character building feels like we were a contestant on Let's Make a Deal. Monty Hall would laugh his arse off to see how often we stoopid chose the mystery option behind curtain #2. Monty: Now Gromnir, you have seen how well fireball works in this game, and you can add it to Wynne's spell list after three levels of investment. Or... Gromnir: "Or" what Monty? Monty: "Or" you can choose mass rejuvenate right now. Mass rejuvenate may be fantastic spell, or it may be like 1/3 of the spells available in dragon age: a complete loser. So, what will you choose? Gromnir: You can't tell me anything more about mass rejuvenate before I make my choice? Monty: What more do you need to know? The name says it all, or perhaps it doesn't. That's what makes choosing so exciting, right? Gromnir: (sigh) I'll take what's behind curtain #2. the curtain rises revealing a small can of play-doh with a ribbon on it. *$%# HA! Good Fun!

"I agree that, overall, they are. But, if one thinks about it, it pretty much has to be that way with any system with magic." bs. Gromnir mentioned this on the biowarian board a Long time ago. the problem is that magic ain't treated by most game developers same way they treat other aspects o' combat. you build an archer and the archer ain't gonna be great in melee. the 2h da fighter is not an optimal tank and sucks at ranged, but is good at dealing big damage in melee. the dual-wielding rogue, especially early on, is gonna get slammed by any critter with big armour/damage resistance... 'cause no matter how many times you hit, dr gets taken off the top, and early level rogues just not gut the stats to do big damage... and they sure ain't tanks. etc. the thing is, most developers has a brain seizure when they consider magic. they split schools o' magic based on elements like ice and fire, or traditional moor**** or vance stuff. has geek appeal, but it is a retarded way to build a rational system o' Combat magic. magic would be just as special if it were rational. for a da warrior to be successful, he gotta focus on a particular "school"... try to be good at dw and archery and 2h and you is epic fail. mages, on the other hand, can pick and choose from the smorgasbord o' da spells and be great at... every aspect o' combat. can does big single hit damage likes a 2h fighter. can does ranged and better area effect than any archer. can does a better job of disabling opponents than any rogue build. for chrissakes, make 'em pick one thing to be good at. other alternative is to vast reduce the number o' spells. is far easier to balance with fewer spells. regardless, make magic rational wouldn't make magic any less kewl... but it would make different, and da weren't going for different. am fully understanding why da didn't go for different. got traditional class breakdown and the familiar elves/dwarves/humans/ orcs (darkspawn) races and all the other trappings o' familiar fantasy setting. da tried to do slight and meaningful variations on tradition, but they weren't gonna get very far away from what players expect. is perfect understandable to do so, 'cause is risky to do original when you know that people likes familiar... and familiar not have to mean cliche neither. tradition is a fine thing... save for when tradition sucks. traditional magic, with a huge potential catalog o' spells that allows mages to replicate and exceed most of the Combat abilities o' any other class, is a self-defeating approach... and it ain't necessary. 'cause something is expected not make it necessary. also, as already noted, if da enemies reacted to mages rationally, people would be far less inclined to think that they were overpowered. if every time you entered combat with intelligent foes they all focused their efforts on your mage, combat would not be much fun at lower levels. sure, once you gets sleep and area effect spells and misdirection and death hex and other spells, then you can stroll through any combat... but how many folks would quit in frustration before reaching such point? for spider, we finished less than 1000 xp from level 23, and we missed some stuff... am not sure how many traps we simply set-off. at least a handful of quests too. we used the french chick as a bard. her willpower sucked 'cause we tried to get her dex and cunning up to useful levels. her disorient worked on chumps who rare needed to be disoriented... were usually fail on boss and elites. am honest not sure o' the impact o' the first bard song thingie. didn't seem all that noteworthy though. lack of transparency regarding rules makes difficult to judge. virumor thinks the french tart is the cat's meow, so maybe he gots a better notion regarding bard songs. our party were far better without her than with her... and we had given her all 4 bard talents. HA! Good Fun!

btw, did anybody else name their dog, Loghain? HA! Good Fun!

there is a period of time during which we used crushing prison frequent. sadly, at some indefinable point most o' the non-fodder baddies began resisting it... or simply shrugged it off. we saw the spirit damage numbers leaping too fast to be seen, and we could see the aura affecting critters, but the critter were not disabled and the damage done seemed almost negligible. is strange, but force field actual gave us more pay-off late than did crushing prison. crushing prison, by late in game, were a way to keeps one or two o' those pesky scattershot archers immobilized. Gromnir played on hard, so maybe that made the difference. as for targeting mages, it were, as noted above, almost never a priority of enemies. yeah, when direct damaged by a mage an individual enemy might attack the caster, but there were no concerted tactic to remove the mage, and the mage were able to roam 'bout the battlefield to set-up cone of cold and other such spells. cone o' cold spell were our number 1 spell. am trying to conceive of its effectiveness if mages were genuinely targeted by baddies. perhaps that explains yours and di's experience with long incantations. Gromnir Always cast earthquake before blizzard and then set up a kinda nasty killing zone... bad guys never genuine made it to our party save for maybe the occasional ogre alpha or some such, but we never used blizzard save for at very start o' a combat encounter, and then only at extreme range. were just too damn likely to result in friendly fire damage.... send in shale with taunt, force field our jnpc, then spam with area effects. morrigan with every cold damage boosting item we had would blizzard mobs to death... when we finally added tempest for morrigan and inferno for wynne, we had serious mob destroyer potential... and even if we ended up killing shale 'bout 25 or thirty times 'fore end of game, wynne's cleansing aura were removing evidence of injuries after individual combat encounters... so no serious lasting harm harm were done. shale's sacrifice were always appreciated. again, am not claiming that mages were invisible on the battlefield... mages would get attacked, but the mage could determine where and when she would be attacked, and were almost always a single enemy that would initiate an attack in response to direct damage. there were no enemy tactic (save for in one specific encounter) we could see to remove mages from our party... not like we saw even in bg2. mages could move about the battlefield unmolested... only ever got targeted in response to a direct attack. HA! Good Fun!

yes, Gromnir enjoys pie as well. am not sure what variety is our favorite... kinda depends on our mood. btw, is not even just initial... did you even play this game. mage can blast folks with spells all day long and if some armoured chap is closer chances are the armoured guy gets attacked 'stead of the mage. is not our fault if you use wrong... plug away at grimlocks with lightning bolts from 2" away or some such. again, cause some folks is kinda slow, mages ain't invulnerable and it ain't like they won't never get attacked, but they gets to move 'round in the midst o' combat "relative unmolested." considering the fact that enemy mages is almost near universal our primary target in combat, it is passing strange that opponents not similarly realize the deadly impact o' magery. bah... stick to pie. HA! Good Fun!

... are you impaired? then what, pray-tell, is the "o rly" in response to? "I like pie." from now on it ain't just "no" and "nope" but pretty much all your posts is gonna simply be Gromnir translated as, "I like pie." is almost surreal... Really. HA! Good Fun!

really. alan actually confirmed that enemies do indeed prioritize based on armor strength. yeah, if morrigan does damage to a critter she is adjacent to, that critter will maybe attack her... is not some kinda mage-invulterability... never suggested that mages never get attacked. nevertheless, when a boss, tough critter, or even a grunt initial chooses a target they almost never focus on mages. as already stated, this target prioritization were confirmed. so yeah, really. HA! Good Fun!

It's not even necessary. A mage has so many defenses at his/her disposal that complete hordes can easily be subdued without taking any damage at all. A mage losing to some fighter with an oversized sword or axe, is just insulting. Only a Templar should be able to destroy a mage, with the Holy Smite ability. the game mechanics, as much as the rules, makes mages powerful. very few da enemies seek out mages as a primary target. mages can sit in the midst 'o combat and lob spells relative unmolested. am honest not sure if we would place heavy armour on our mage even if we could do so, 'cause ordinary da enemies prioritize foes based on armour strength. is no reason to make our low health mage a target by adding armour. is maybe only a handful o' enemies we can recall that made our mages their primary target... off the top o' our head, we can only think o' one such situation in the entire game. there is some pretty tough da foes that seem to resist with high frequency... and if such foes active targeted mages... am not saying that mages ain't relative overpowered... 'cause they are. am simple observing that the game mechanics exacerbate the imbalance. handicapping enemy ai were probable deemed necessary at low levels, but such coddling becomes unnecessary at level 12 and beyond. game is fun, but rules and mechanics is poorly balanced and odd. HA! Good Fun!

Why do I even bother. I don't know, because all you have shown is that Volo was right. He said people were going through with a solo rogue, not that they had already done so. vol's observation becomes somewhat pointless if is mere a recognition that people is trying to solo, no? if he is trying to imply that mages ain't so tough cause people is soloing with rogues, then fact fact nobody has actual done so undercuts, yes? 'course, as already noted, the ability to solo with a given class does not somehow rob mages with blood mage and arcane warrior specializations o' their relative power. vol's observation is empty on multiple levels. 2 additional points... 1) am pretty sure you cannot solo, even if you wish to. our recollection is that a number o' critical path missions had 1 party mate forced on you. so, is not genuine solo... though am willing to concede that such is a mere technicality. 2) solo don't prove much o' anything in any event for a rogue to solo successfully, he/she is gonna have to sneak past combats, set up traps, and exploit ai to lure out manageable numbers of foes. lord only knows why somebody would wish to play the game that way, but it surely don't show the powha o' the rogue... so much as the lack o' sanity o' some players. is a bit like those nerdlings that memorize star wars minutiae and then brag 'bout their hobbyist superiority on some backwater message board... what a colossal waste o' time. tattoo "loser" on your forehead and get it over with. HA! Good Fun!

maybe you will have better luck with that than did Gromnir. seemed like a wasted spell. got about as much use out of it as we did regeneration. on our first playthrough, we gave our 2-h warrior willpower = constitution... and we probably shoulda' gone higher on the willpower. you can always potion-up for health, but is no potion for stamina. "Anyhow, I now don't need Imoen Chick or Zorro Elf so I can hire two good warriors and a mage and do the game properly this time, and yes I am sorcerer.gif re-speccing all the NPCs to suit my style." re-spec has equal impact on game as does moving difficulty slider... the original difficulty slider. HA! Good Fun!

1) you complete missed the point again, 'cause kids, developmentally disabled, and dumb animals need extreme repetition to learn: the ability to solo in any game with a particular class does not somehow reduce the relative power o' other remaining classes. ability to solo as a da rogue does not somehow weaken da mages... just as capacity to kill da dragons with iron weapons does not somehow reduce efficacy of enchanted & named weapons. and 2) bg2 were very hard for folks unfamiliar with d&d rules am imagining that mage combats, in particular, musta been particularly troubling for folks unfamiliar with d&d mechanics. well guess what? bio, for some ridiculous reason, hid the da rules and mechanics from player view. all of us, save for some folks that maybe spent 24/7 on the bio boards pre-release, is playing da much as d&d neophytes were playing bg2: ignorant. Gromnir finished da and we still not know how armour penetration works specific. counter-intuitive starting builds for jnpcs, combined with hidden rules makes the game far more difficult than it otherwise would be. second time through da is gonna be much easier than second time through bg2... 'cause is not so much meta knowledge that gives an edge the second time 'round, but rather through +60 hours o' trial and error, Gromnir now has at least a basic working knowledge o' what works and don't work in da. huzzah. *snort* the difficulty o' da were largely contrived... is a function o' seemingly intentional obfuscation o' game mechanics coupled with inexplicably busted jnpc mage and rogue builds. am recognizing that da weren't near as difficult as we thought as we replay. HA! Good Fun!

Di, whilst in the city the little 'Change Party' icon should glow gold at the top of the GUI, you can just access the 'Cast 'O NPCs' screen automatically. It doesn't work in other areas, you need to access camp. That's my problem, I only have access to the market district, and my little icon is black. When you say the city, do you mean further inside the city, like in the castle areas? I can't go there yet, only to the Pearl and back allies. oddly enough, the only portion of the city we can recall being able to change our party on-the-fly, were the alienage... and that didn't become available til... later. as enoch identifies, going to camp is a viable option, if far less convenient. HA! Good Fun!

bad logic. fact that a game can be completed sans mages has 0 relevance regarding the relative power o' mages. where did you go to school? really, is as if the part o' kanada you is from has internet connections but no schools. is that even possible? and yeah, am seeing how people could solo with a rogue for much o' game... use traps and lure critters out one or two at a time. would be mind numbing tedious, but we could see it working... but again, that gots little to do with the relative power o' mages. is people that solo bg2 with bards for chrissakes... doesn't somehow make ranger/cleric or kensai/mage less powerful. sheesh HA! Good Fun!

"Nope. This isn't true. The game can be beaten with npcs as is. " strawman or stoopid? where we say you couldn't finish game with the npcs as is. Gromnir is playing on hard... is no question we could finish game with current jnpcs. what we said, and you failed to read, is that the difficulty ain't due to mechanics, strategy or tactics, but rather is based on ... other considerations. most notable consideration is fact that our jnpcs is having crummy builds. "Nope" whenever we see vol post "no" or "nope," we just mental replace with "I like pie." your posts is much more readable that way... more insightful too. HA! Good Fun!

one aspect that is slight disappointing is fact that the difficulty o' the game seems to largely depend on how jnpcs is built. folks who use the available mod to change npc specializations, skills and talents is probable playing a far different game than is Gromnir. zevran, for instance, is a serious effective combatant, but 'cause he not got lockpicky and trap disarm skills, he is hardly an ideal party addition to other possible melee combatants. am suspecting that we could make the little french girl into a very effective rogue, but for much o' the game she were simply a tool for disarming locks... would drag her back through maps already cleared, but she were a liability in combat. allistar is probable the only character we got zero complaints regarding his build, and that is 'cause we had him in party from early on in process. heck, one character we acquired late in game had all 4 levels o' combat tactics skill. freaking combat tactics? what a waste. for reasons we cannot discuss, our party configuration at end of game was something less than ideal... and since we plays straight first time through, we is also not exactly having all our best possible equipment neither. 'course the main factor making end portion o' the game a little difficult is fact that we got a mage who bio gave us gimped... and then we gimped more 'cause some spells that sounded okie dokie on paper were serious piles in practice. some o' the fun evaporates when you look at party and feels you is being hamstrung by the developers... for no good purpose. regardless, we refuse to consider observations 'bout game difficulty delivered by any player who has re-built their jnpcs... 'cause your game ain't gonna be as difficult as is ours. not even close. obvious there is some significant balance issues with the game, particularly concerning mages. is not game = easy, or game = hard 'less you know what build the pc and jpcs gots. btw, any word when an official patch is becoming available? have seen hotfix stuff, which we tend to avoid, but no genuine patch is available. heck, am not even sure that the rogue fix personally improves the game 'cause the high cunning build we were considering playing for our second game not seem quite so viable no more. HA! Good Fun! ps am not sure how people can claims to have completed just 'bout everything and be finishing game at level 20 or lower. Gromnir is near end (we suspect) and am just 'bout to reach level 23. no doubt if we had had a worthwhile rogue in party to disable traps rather than trip 'em, we would easily reached 23 by now. heck, we actual didn't finish at least 2 o' the mage collective quests... and at least one Denerim quest appears to be bugged, so it not show up as complete. didn't do the crow quests neither... just killed the master after he made his offer. no doubt we missed considerable other stuff 'cause we didn't get side-tracked achievement until just before the landsmeet.

"Yeah but the demonified dragon is supposed to be the most powerful being in the DAverse, " says who? bioware? 'cause if is bioware, then they can simply come up with a bigger ubg (ultimate bad guy) if they wish... or they can come up with a more practical ubg if the wish. is silly game reasoning that the toughest villain is the ultimate villain... 'cause you always need some end confrontation/battle in a game that includes a large portion o' combat. Gromnir could beat the snot out of bill gates without much effort... but a bill gates type would makes one heck of a game villain... and far more sinister than some pansy dragonfiend. you can create new challenges that would challenge a da party w/o having to one-up the previous ubg in terms o' sheer power numbers. HA! Good Fun!

nope. your final bg auto-save, right before entering the undercity temple, would has you whisked away to the totsc portion. alternatively, if you were current playing bg, you could access new materials at any time. HA! Good Fun!

at the end of nwn2 you defeat the king of shadows. similar. *shrug* with d&d cr scheme, it were hard to come up with plausible continuations of games such as tob or motb... but otherwise, particularly with an original ip, am not seeing any bounds or boarders to a creative mind. $5 means little to Gromnir, but am maybe gonna skip if we gets a mere 1 hour and some ph47 1007 for our quid. am not bent out of shape by ea's mercenary approach, but am not gonna play the sucker's role neither... treat da fans like junkies in need of a fix? is probable a pretty good business model, but am not gonna support... am not gonna get twisted by it neither though. HA! Good Fun!

"gromnir" account is banned and we cannot seem to search via archive. nevertheless, we both know you is fibbing if you pretend that biowarians didn't suggest that origins would have far reaching and signifficant consequences. "Sure, BIO hyped them up." and sure enough, you isn't actually denying... you is simply prevaricating. how can you possibly call folks fools for believing biowarians? again, Gromnir slammed 'em pretty hard for their puffery and they didn't back down an inch... they didn't disabuse folks o' notion that origins would have lasting and far reaching consequences, and they didn't correct posters who were expecting long hours from origins. we can find posts by priestly saying that "game will be as long as it needs to be," but nothing 'bout 2-5 hours for origins. you is fine with what you got? great. Gromnir agrees that the game is good... but you is changing your tune and being... vol. first you suggest that biowarians supplied as promised regarding origins. now we got admission that there were hype. is not hype if is complete true... admit hype means you admit biowarian distortion o' reality. HA! Good Fun!

saying that centerpiece of game is blight and grey wardens is meaningless... that is story and goes throughout game. is like saying that vcenterbpeice of bg2 were bhaalspawn. "a) the origins would be 2-5 hours long and they would effect later parts of the game." is at least 1 thing. unless biowarians has, within last 3 months complete changed story, the degree to which origins were 'posed to affect game were 'posed to be substantial. every time Gromnir said: dialogue and maybe a side-quest or two, biowarians claimed more, much more. also, we would like you to post where biowarians said 2 hours for origins... is possible they has, but would needs be relative recent. "That those people seriosuly thoguht BIo was making 5 different games? if so, those people are stupid." they ain't stoopid... just naive. they bought bio sales pitch regarding origins. blame purchasers and boardies for actual believing biowarians? how stoopid could they be, right? vol is being vol... again, but if you can show us the 2 hour estimates that would be nice. preferably from some time previous to last six months, 'cause implication previous to that were that the origins were... substantial. haven't bothered to look in last six months... and why would we after so many years? again, is a fine game, but if you honestly try to spin that origins is how bio presented then you is either delusional or a fibber... really. is at 4 times when Gaider specifically told Gromnir that origins were far more substantial then we were predicting. turns out that our predictions were... optimistic. HA! Good Fun!

"Comapred to every other game that's EVER used the idea of 'origins' or 'prologues', BIO's gotten the most use out of them... which is what was promised." crock. if all bio had claimed were, "our origins will be better than toee's," nobody woulda' expected much. we saw loads o' people at the bio boards believing that origin portions would be 10 hours long, and that each origin would allow for a genuine unique gamplay experience. "The game is called "Dragon Age: ORIGINS". Bioware is obviously making the origins a centerpiece of the game." the biowarians didn't tell such folks that they were expecting too much. they did tell those of us with modest expectations that we were underestimating. keep in mind, Gromnir was on the boards when the biowarians made similar claims 'bout nwn. Gromnir pointed out that you couldn't effective design a game that gave you a genuine unique gameplay experience for each class choice if you utilized d&d rules, and were limited to 1 pc and a henchman. folks on the boards defended bio claims... and a handful o' em were honest 'nuff after the fact to admit that bio had overestimated. again, is not that da is a bad game. am thinking that some folks is confusing their approval of da with their objectivity regarding the origins. the origins is a nice little feature, but they ain't anywhere near what we were led to believe they would be. "Or some DLC to appease the hordes who weren't happy with Watcher's Keep (like unlocking it perhaps)." *chuckle* that would be fun to watch. am wondering how many people would burst a blood vessel at such news. HA! Good Fun!