Dragon Age story/plot discussion

[alanschu]

Yeah I believe you

 

It makes sense given the context of that area.

 

 

Have you been able to get inside?

[Maria Caliban]

Yes. So far I've:

 

Finished Kenloch tower

Cured Conner of possession

 

 

I don't know if I should:

 

Head to Orzimmar and explore that. -or-

Head to Dernium start the Sacred Ashes quest. Leliana also wants me to head to Denrnim to do her quest. -or-

Head to the forest.

 

 

After I gave Morrigan [special gift], she gave me her companion quest. I'm unsure if I should persue it or not.

 

Do any of the other areas lock you in?

Edited November 5, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Volourn]

"Where does Alistair urge you to seek help after the Battle of Ostigar? "We should seek out XX in YY, he's well-respected and can help us." "

 

You listened to Alistair? The moron? That was your first, and deadliest mistake. L0LZ

 

 

And, yes, I LOATHE overwelm ability. I have never survived when falling victim to it.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Volourn

[alanschu]

Hmm, I don't believe any of the areas you have remaining lock you in.

 

There might be a lock in in

Orzammar

after you have been there and started doing things for a while. I can't remember exactly.

[Niten_Ryu]

Few quick first impressions. I got game today from local store and I think I have something like 4 hours played.

 

Bioware has definately watched WoW development close and created combat system that feel very much like MMOG combat. It's way more balanced when D&D as every encounter assume that you'll start with full health and stamina/mana. I'm playing on hard difficulty and I think it works rather well. I've had few full wipes because I wanted to play without pause and sometimes mobs aggro very far away and someone will run in and pull huge crowd. That too reminds me of WoW's less then successful PUG runs

 

After I refined Tactics options (I don't understand why these have to be limited and only raise with levels) and found out "hold" button, things have been much more smooth. I don't have healer and I'm stingy with potions (paradox, I don't use 'em because I'm always waiting next "hard" fight... and not to use 'em there either). I did use few potions for first Orge fight as it literally kicked my ass. My female dwarven rogue was collecting teeth thanks to impressive backside kick. Ogre has taken some of lessons from Bruce Lee. When I did kill the Ogre, I lost both of my warriors so I'd say difficulty of that fight in that level was just great. More careful manouvering might have saved me but I didn't have stun ready when Ogre crushed Tower Guard (Grip of death).

 

Best way to deal with huge amounts of orcs is to pull 'em like you do in MMOGs and fight in small corridors or doorways. I'm not sure what to think of stamina system. I seem to drain it rather fast even in light armor (and warriors in medium). I haven't done any calculations but I've invested in willpower (might be stupid but such is the charm of the new game) in order to gain more stamina to use special attacks.

 

Characters acting is wooden (but not so much as in Oblivion or Fallout 3) and voice acting is rather dry too. Didn't help that I played GTA 4 earlier this weeks as it does both of those thing as good as it's possible in this generation of games. World is very generic and I often forget what world it is. It could be LotR, Warcraft, Forgotten Realms ect ect. It don't bother me and in strange way feel extremely familar. Like 2nd or 3rd run on same game.

 

Graphics are ok 2007 quality. I think enough have been said about graphics over the years so I think best way is to say that graphics are dated and art design normal NWN / NWN2 / 1999 poser stuff. It's another of those things that make game feel familar. You yhink you're re-playing game that was released few years ago.

 

Codex is nice but I wish there would have been narrator like in Mass Effect. I remember spoken stuff better then text. Silent protagonist divides CRPG players but it definately bothers me. Mass Effect's system has left permanent mark on me, even after 25 years of text only games. It just feel like there's something missing is protagonist just stay mute in all cutscenes.

 

So far plot has been very preditable. Nothing in game has suprised me and I really hope that'll change later on. Dwarf commoner origin was way too linear to be anything special. I would have taken non-linear first chapter rahter then 6 different origins.

 

Only bug / missing feature I've experienced so far is "exit combat" button. Sometimes party stay in combat mode way too long, even if no mobs are nearby.

[thepixiesrock]

Yeah so whenever you unlock one of the specializations, it applies to previous saves, so if you save it before you unlock it, you can unlock it and then just reload you save and it will still be unlocked. That way whatever you had to give up or do to unlock it you won't have had to.

 

So I know I'm quoting myself but nobody responded to it, and I was wondering did anyone else noticed this?

[alanschu]

Yeah that is the case.

 

I didn't even think of gaming it the way that you did, but the specializations are actually tied to achievements. On a personal level I think they should have been character based, but they weren't. If your profile unlocks it, it becomes available to all characters.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Hmmm, I didn't find the start to be overly difficult personally. Especially if I had a party member, ANY party member with me. Slide in behind the guy and you can deal out some pretty sweet damage. Toss in a stun after a few hits to make sure they don't turn around. I did have some growing pains at the start, but that seemed to be more related to the group as a whole and me not expecting that the game might be somewhat challenging.

 

I pose that we have different ideas of what constitutes pretty sweet damage. Also, there's nothing that quantifies "growing pains," it all has to do with how much failure you are willing to accept.

 

Hmmm, didn't notice that. Especially once I got Alistair up to tanking form. Alistair typically hovered around 10-15% of all damage done in the party, while Morrigan and myself each split off about 40% each. Though I tended to put my points split into Dex and cunning, with some strength and willpower. Though I used the strength so that I could get swords, not so much better armor.

 

I dropped Alistair like a bad habit, so I can't vouch for his effectiveness beyond the prologue. Sten, Morrigan, and Dog ASAP; with Shale and Oghren eventually replacing Sten and Dog.

 

Point of interest, using anything other than a dagger robs you of your dex damage bonus, which as a high dex character is not insubstantial. Again, I think we may have different standards for what is effective.

 

Even in my character's new and improved state, he's lucky to keep up with my damage dealers. Oghren can do 80 damage per (slow) hit from the front, even with a good flank and poison it would take a few criticals for my rogue to match that in the same timeframe (this is using momentum and dueling, and with expensive items). Shale can rock out around 40 damage per punch and keeps a pretty good attack rate going.

 

 

I found the social skills to be pretty useful. Which situations did you find you fought the guy later with more reinforcements anyway after using them? If that happened, I wonder if you actually failed the Intimidate/Persuade check. And yes, if you don't put points into lockpicking or cunning, you're going to struggle with opening locked items (I think it also helps with spotting and disarming traps too IIRC).

 

 

In Denerim, after talking down the mercenaries in the Pearl, you later run into them on the street fighting the city guard. In the dwarf city, you talk down the guys in one of the shops, and later are forced to fight the same group anyway as part of a plot quest.

Those are the two that immediately come to mind. I've certainly used the skill a number of other times, but seldom did I feel it made my life a whole lot easier.

Rallying the Redcliffe militia may be an exception, though the knight AI was content to watch me do the fighting until I deliberately lured enemies into their radius

. Most of the time, it seemed like it either got me out of fights I probably could've won anyway or simply added color to the dialogue without significantly truncating the quest structure or increasing my reward.

 

Suffice to say I've had plenty of difficulties where combat deficiency screwed my party over and virtually no situations in which lack of persuasion would've screwed my party over. It's kind of inherent in the party-based design: unless the persuade-avoidable battles are the toughest in the game, then the easiest way to surmount the game's most difficult parts is to be a badass combatant.

 

Re the other stuff, that's kind of my point. If a character puts all his feats and skills into combat at the expense of other skills, he ought to be good at it throughout the game, not after patching up certain class deficiencies like adding cunning to damage at level 8, evasion at level 12, or the Duelist's defensive mode at level 16.

 

At the end of the day you can make a rogue work, but IMO it's a labor of love. If you aren't personally invested in how cool the class concept is, then you're taking on an unnecessary mechanical difficulty.

[alanschu]

I pose that we have different ideas of what constitutes pretty sweet damage.

 

Well, tied with my other top damage dealer, a mage with AOE abilities (as a rogue I also had AOE abilities). It was certainly enough damage that I didn't have issues killing guys, except in tough fights where it seems my entire party would have issues.

 

Also, there's nothing that quantifies "growing pains," it all has to do with how much failure you are willing to accept.

 

Growing pains referred to me learning how to play the game effectively. On later tests at the beginning of the game with me as a rogue, I have no problems playing the game. At least on Normal difficulty.

 

 

Point of interest, using anything other than a dagger robs you of your dex damage bonus, which as a high dex character is not insubstantial. Again, I think we may have different standards for what is effective.

 

I think we had different builds. Giving myself some strength (I think I ended at 26 or so) gave me access to some very powerful weaponry that exceeded the damage value of pretty much every dagger I found. It could be I didn't find particularly sweet daggers, but I dropped guys quickly with my swords. Once I had the skills I wanted with dexterity, the bulk of my points went into cunning, so I didn't feel I lost out on much by not having the dex damage bonus with daggers anymore. I can't compare my damage with Oghren or anybody because my party was primarily me, Alistair, Wynne, and Morrigan.

 

On a personal level, I disagree that a specialized combat rogue is not good at combat throughout the game. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point I think.

 

 

EDIT: I'll concede that a warrior is probably more survivable, not just to start, but throughout. This is because he'll typically have the most hit points in addition to much better armor.

Edited November 5, 2009 by alanschu

[Tigranes]

Going to the local shop to get it now, regular version, PC.

[HoonDing]

Is there a recommended level for doing the Stone Prisoner quest?

 

I finally got the DLC to download by manually starting an updater service using the command prompt...

[entrerix]

in my day, rogues did **** during combat and were only brought along to find traps and pick locks. im not sure when people started to expect their thief to actually deal damage outside the very rare backstab or generally ineffective shortbow archery.

[Musopticon?]

About the time when 3.5 D&D came out. Precision damage was a godsend.

[Maria Caliban]

FYI, dex does not add damage to daggers. It ought to, but it does not.

[Volourn]

No, it oughtn't.

 

I don't why people expect rogues to be as good at FIGHTING as FIGHTERS.

[entrerix]

No, it oughtn't.

 

I don't why people expect rogues to be as good at FIGHTING as FIGHTERS.

 

 

i agree, a fighter should kill a rogue 10 out of 10 times in combat. but the fighter can't do any of the cool stuff that a rogue can do OUT of combat. imo

 

 

edit: except intimidate

Edited November 6, 2009 by entrerix

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I think we had different builds. Giving myself some strength (I think I ended at 26 or so) gave me access to some very powerful weaponry that exceeded the damage value of pretty much every dagger I found.

 

I'm not surprised that you did more damage in the early game then. The feat at level 8 swaps your STR damage bonus with cunning (if higher), so if the difference isn't very pronounced the feat is pretty insignificant. If say, you're rolling with 12 STR like I was, it tends to amount to a whole lot of suck until level 8.

 

Also, Maria pointed out that the dex damage bonus I mentioned earlier (it supposedly applies to *anybody* using piercing weapons, not just rogues) isn't working properly. That might explain a lot. After they patch it, I'll definitely re-evaluate my position.

 

EDIT: I'll concede that a warrior is probably more survivable, not just to start, but throughout. This is because he'll typically have the most hit points in addition to much better armor.

 

Then I'm not really sure we're disagreeing, I just choose to say it in a much stronger way.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

No, it oughtn't.

 

I don't why people expect rogues to be as good at FIGHTING as FIGHTERS.

 

It's weapon-based, not a rogue ability. If you wanted to be a badass knife fighter, you could.

[Syraxis]

FYI, dex does not add damage to daggers. It ought to, but it does not.

 

But doesn't DEX calculate damage over strength if one has daggers equipped? If I'm not mistaking it works much like the Weapons Finesse feat in NWN2.

[Tigranes]

Apparently it's meant to be half dex half str but it's all str. So there are in fact no weapons that give bonuses based on dex.

[Enoch]

Apparently it's meant to be half dex half str but it's all str. So there are in fact no weapons that give bonuses based on dex.

Is it confirmed that the combat calculations are actually doing this, or is this just in the feedback you get on your character sheet?

[Oner]

in my day, rogues did **** during combat and were only brought along to find traps and pick locks. im not sure when people started to expect their thief to actually deal damage outside the very rare backstab or generally ineffective shortbow archery.

Around the time they got called rogue instead of thief.

 

 

No, it oughtn't.

 

I don't why people expect rogues to be as good at FIGHTING as FIGHTERS.

I guess 'good at dirty fighting' mutated into 'good at fighting' after some time.

[Syraxis]

in my day, rogues did **** during combat and were only brought along to find traps and pick locks. im not sure when people started to expect their thief to actually deal damage outside the very rare backstab or generally ineffective shortbow archery.

Around the time they got called rogue instead of thief.

 

Or when people played as rogues in WoW and somehow got the notion that a universal rule exists that rogues in all games are badass dual-wielding DPS masheens

[Maria Caliban]

A new patch just appeared on Steam. Apparently Easy mode is now easier and normal has bonuses to attack/damage for your followers.

 

For regular version: http://social.bioware.com/game_patches.php

 

Apparently it's meant to be half dex half str but it's all str. So there are in fact no weapons that give bonuses based on dex.

Is it confirmed that the combat calculations are actually doing this, or is this just in the feedback you get on your character sheet?

 

It's confirmed by a developer.

 

No, it oughtn't.

 

I don't why people expect rogues to be as good at FIGHTING as FIGHTERS.

 

Er, yes they ought. By the rules of the game, piercing weapons (arrows and daggers) get a damage bonus from dextarity. For some reason the bonus isn't being applied.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Jaesun]

Sadly, as playing a pure fighter, and made it 2/4 of the game, rogues are WAY better as fighters than.... actual fighters.

 

I think I need to re-start and play a rogue. They are unstoppable killing machines of death.