Gromnir

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!

"I think the problem is people expect way too much. They somehow have this foolish notion that because of origins that BIO was actually making 5 different games. Come on, people. Get realz." hyperbole or strawman? take your pick. from the origins you get lots of extra... how did alan describe? fluff? yeah, fluff. "consequences" were a word biowarians kept using during development, and other than fluff and flavor we ain't seen much (any) genuine change in game after +45 hours of gameplay. Gromnir is the person who kept telling people Not to expect 5 different games... am one of the folks that kept saying that with a single critical path we didn't see the origins as being having a significant impact on rest of game. more than a couple folks, Gromnir included, noted that bio likes to give players access to as much of game as possible w/o possibility of missing... entire party of followers goes with you on ebon hawk, and the there ain't gonna be no special tangential stuff for those who play class x as 'posed to class y. etc. ... is not that people expect too much. if you think that is the case then you didn't pay attention when Gromnir and others expressed reservations. we expected little, but we has actually gotten less. the strange thing is that it were the biowarians who assured us that we were underestimating and undervaluing the origins. left to our own devices and prognostications, we woulda' predicted that the origins woulda' had 'bout as much impact as they actually have had. however, based on biowarian feedback and claims, Gromnir expected at least a couple additional side-quests and Some meaningful additional consequences. our meager expectations is what bio made 'em. thank goodness we didn't actually believe their entire sales pitch or we would be real disappointed. HA! Good Fun!

is folks who suggested that the origins would be unique starting locations but that beyond the initial portion there would be little noteworthy material other than some unique dialogue options... nothing that would significant alter the critical path. Gromnir went so far as to suggest that each origin could probable support a couple of minor tangential side-quests that would be unlocked/available during course of typical play. biowarians assured Gromnir and other cynics that the origins would have far greater impact than we suggested. ... am seeing Less than we expected, rather than more. given how the biowarians insisted that the origins would result in numerous and tangible gameplay consequences, am genuine surprised by how little we has seen. honest, we figured at least a couple o' tangential sidequest options would open up as we played, but am nearing the end and have seen nothing like even what we had modest expected, given biowarian claims and indignant responses to the cynics. is a fine game... am just not impressed by the unique origin material, especial in light of fact that biowarians defended the innovation and impact o' the origins. HA! Good Fun!

something we noticed last night... Gromnir didn't take petrify for wynne, 'cause it seemed like less pay-off than cone of cold. however, we bought those arcane talent boosting books and played around with a saved game we had just before meeting the crimson oars mercenaries. is only 4 potential baddies, but 2 gots yellow lettering for their naming. yellow name enemies almost never shatter when Gromnir crit hits 'em while frozen. however, the petrified crimson oar leader shattered each time we replayed... am supposing that combined with death hex, such a combination could be lethal to all but a few critters in the game. am doubting it works on revanants, but we will test this eve. HA! Good Fun!

end of game is the absolute easiest place for developers to add such stuff, 'cause there is no bifurcation or consequences beyond that point. Gromnir enjoyed the ToB epilogues and the end options for ps:t, but such stuff is hardly new, and at least from a design pov, is not particularly impressive. however, if the execution were good, that counts at 'least as much as does innovation. is nice to hear that end is satisfying. "As a dwarf commoner, I had a ton of dialogue choices based on my race. " dialogue options not actual = change in consequences. mass effect dialogue wheel should have taught people that lesson. as a dwarf commoner there is an obvious portion o' game where results potentially could be changed. am wondering how significant those changes were. have an occasional reference made to facial tattoos or such stuff is... nice. however, that doesn't sound like what bio were suggesting. HA! Good Fun!

quick question: how much difference did origins make in your play through? have played human noble, and am noticing very few places where alternative options is available past the origin portion. however, having played through the complete dwarf noble section, and a few minutes o' the dwarf commoner origins, am seeing potential places in dwarfy portion o' game where you could get unique options. so, for those o' you who played stuff other than human, did the origins alter your game significant past the origin portion? bio made big claims 'bout origins feature and impact on game as whole, and while game has been very fun indeed, am not personally seeing origins impact in our game. HA! Good Fun!

our weapon swaps, so far, has been of 2 flavors: ranged v. melee enchantment configurations the ranged v. melee should be obvious... those area effect spells makes ranged weapons more useful. enchantments, on the other hand... am finding that is sometimes nice to have a darkspawn killer v. a undead weapon... am still trying to figure out the resistances o' various categories 'cause the numbers is hard to decipher, but various weapons and enchantments seems particular geared towards undead and darkspawn, so we switch on the fly as needed. armour penetration? am knowing it exists in game, but is no noticeable effect so is tough to make choices based on such.... heck, am still trying to figure out hits v. misses. according to our heroic statistics, our warrior has been hitting 79% of time. am pretty sure that number has not changed all the way through game, which seems... unlikely. HA! Good Fun!

Guess what my reaction to the mage spell list was. overwhelmed players with too many choices? HA! the thiefy talents coulda been opened up to both warriors and mages... and the combat stuff coulda' been provided to warrior. "overwhelmed" players is almost as ridiculous as making combat tactics slots a freaking skill. rogues exist 'cause the warrior/rogue/mage breakdown is traditional, familiar and expected, but folks trying to rationalize some other way is looking foolish. btw, no classes would be fine... just has skill trees and attribute points. problem is that bio went with classes. 2 classes maybe seemed like too few... am recalling when people were suggesting classes and alternative labels for rogue. were silly. skill-user, ranger, bard... were all alternatives mentioned. so bio takes all that crap and dumps into the leftover class. again, Gromnir ain't saying that rogue is weak or unplayable, but it is unnecessary... is bloat. create a third class just 'cause you had too many skills/talents for 2 classes? is not a genuine suggestion, is it? HA! Good Fun!

so far, Gromnir has bought potions and potion making materials. we also bought 2 backpack upgrades (am at 90 slots.) the big-ticket items we has purchased: books. as wynne were royal screwed, we bought the arcane powhaz books for her... and we bought a skill book for our main character... as well as one talent boosting book. paying big gold to boost a single attribute point didn't seem worthwhile, so we skipped those books. we could also buy 1 additional talent book for our warrior, but Gromnir anticipates that we will level at least 1 additional time before we finish the game... and there is really only 1 more talent we is interested in adding to our character. in any event, we current has 134 gold, 41 silver, and 11 coppers... and our chest at soldier's peak is full o' sellable 1007. am assuming that if we sold extra stuff, we would have over 200 gold. HA! Good Fun!

Did you get the achievement for 75% of sidequests done? What level did you end on? some people finished bg2 in less than 40 hours. *shrug* our brain goes kinda numb when folks tell us how short a game was.. or how easy/hard. for every person that says they finished in 40, there will be an equal odd personage that claims excess o' 100 hours... 'course, with all the re-tracking through empty maps with dog and the bard... and recognizing the craptacular inventory management issues we got, am guessing that we should shave close to 10% off our somewhat bloated gameplay hour total. HA! Good Fun!

a simple way to make any battle easier: dump the bard. 2 mages with force field and cone o' cold would make short work o' that bunch. HA! Good Fun!

bio wanted you to not think of rogues as simply stealthy lockpickers... 'course then they goes ahead and makes stealth and lockpicking rogue-specific abilities. morons. HA! Good Fun!

Which ones are these? While I don't deny it'd be possible to render a character useless, I would think you'd have to specifically try (like Dex dump a mage or something). LOL, I kept giving Leliana rogue talents (the "Dirty Fighting" chain), the mechanism talents, and her bard talents. That meant that in combat she would fire twice and then run in and attempt to melee without having any particular aptitude for it, nor the stamina to use the rogue abilities I gave her. Basically, the best role for her at that point was to miss with her arrows and sing. Not much use there IMO. On my current game, I'm going to give Lel Melee Archer and other ranged talents first, and then move on to bardic and mechanical abilities. I made the mistake of having Morrigan delve too deeply into healing, and Wynne too deeply into fire. This gave me more flexibility, but at the cost of decreased effectiveness in their primary roles. I set up some nice tactics for them both to take advantage of the flexibility, but they chugged pots like mad due to constant lack of mana. This time around, I'm keeping them focused where they are. am wishing we had delved into fire for wynne, 'cause we followed the paths stared by the developers and discovered it weren't smart. we finally got use from earthquake, but only if claudia black is casting blizzard, or shale does bombardment. regeneration? does health actually improve when you cast regeneration? haste sounded swell, but didn't seem to work out in practice. etc. we did get the mind blast, force field sequence o' spells, and am gonna buy those arcane books to perhaps give her the fire spells... 'cause other than stonefist and arcane bolt she not got useful offensive powhaz. would probable be smarter to get cold stuff as having claudia and wynne alternating with cone of cold and force fields would be incredible effective. however, when we not have shale in party we would like to have some ranged artillery. am suspecting (no spoilers please) that claudia black is not gonna be helping Gromnir at/near end of game... and if we gotta depend on wynne as she is current built... Gromnir didn't hardly look at the rules before we started playing, 'cause we wanted it to be a genuine novel experience. am playing on hard, but we got mauled MANY times. for us it has not been easy by any stretch o' the imagination. sudden get mobbed by multiple enemy archers all with scattershot? yeah, that were fun. wolves with overwhelm? wolves? am still not sure we is playing anywhere near optimal, 'cause some o' the rules seems bass akwards... or the rules is unknown so am not sure what is genuine going on during combats. but allistar's 4th tier templar power looks keen. if we hadn't acquired force field, largely by accident, we would be getting thoroughly smoked. btw, after finishing some tough battles we went back and played on normal to see how much difference it made... and typically those battles were still pretty damned hard. HA! Good Fun!

really? champion would appear to have the best powhaz. war cry, with knockback, is extreme useful... and if it it imposes penalties proportional to rally... the damned rules not being transparent makes comparisons difficult, but rally + motivate would appear to give a +10 bonus to both defense and attack to any party-mate in the zone... including the champion. am doubting that such stuff stacks if you got 2 champions, but am gonna look next time we see. honest, we don't see any warrior specialization that genuine compares to champion. HA! Good Fun!

level 4 for spirit healer is actual pretty good for a couple reasons. the waves o' healing is nice, kinda like getting multiple group heals, but most useful attribute is the heal injury aspect. Gromnir has party members die during fights... often. am very frugal 'bout potions and am playing on hard, so tough battles typical result in 1-2 Gromnir party corpses. spirit healer's aura heals not only health, but injuries. our typical party includes both jnpc mages. am actual glad 1 of 'em is a spirit healer. wynne's starting spell selection were hardly optimal, but am not bothered by the healer specialty. HA! Good Fun!

On normal difficulty, one tank taunting all the time (to prevent Dragon from targeting other characters) + Force Fielding the tank while your mages are blasting the Dragon, works. I've tested this tactic five times succesfully against the High Dragon. Against Flemeth, I had to do things the old fashioned way because I couldn't bring Morrigan... it's possible Flemeth is smarter than the High Dragon. I'll have to test it when I'm replaying with a PC mage. Immunity against knockdown is recommended; also stay at the flank of the dragon all the time, to prevent the tank from being grabbed or slapped by the tail. Of course, fire resistance is important... going into battle with Drake scale armour + would help too. haven't tried on normal, but we got saves previous to some revanant battles and dragons, and the taunt + force field didn't work so well. used shale as the taunting tank, figuring we could possibly take advantage of it's special defensive aura while held by force field. revanants complete ignored shale in force field. dragons were kinda odd. am assuming that bio made dragons purposeful stoopid to keep 'em from slaughtering every party. dragons evident use the same target prioritizing as does most dragon age enemies: targeting based on party member armour. if dragons genuine attacked mages, am suspecting that the battles would be serious short and ugly. in any event, it seems that while shale is a superior tank to Gromnir's 2-h fighter, enemies is possibly entranced by wade's dragonbone plate... which Gromnir wears. will put allister in our best armour and sees what happens. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir is playing on hard, so perhaps that is why the dragons seemingly ignored our taunt attempts. tried your tactic twice... took our tank out of the fight. abandoned the tactic. Cone o' cold did work, but it also froze our character... but yeah, cone also interrupts the grab. as for healing through the grab... am not sure how that would work unless your heal spells is far more effective than we has seen in Gromnir's game. the amount o' damage being done is overwhelming. even with two casters simultaneous doing heals, plus wynne having cleanse aura active we sees tanks go down... hard. perhaps with a lifeward thrown in as well it might be enough. HA! Good Fun! ps were asked elsewhere, but does anybody know a way to dispel hexes and curses? templar abilities do not work.