Monte's Dragon Age Thread

[alanschu]

The thing I like is, I don't think you really can "screw yourself over" with respect to mage abilities (I'd argue you can with warrior/rogue abilities). I haven't tried _every_ spell though, and I will definitely concede that failing to put at least one point into Heal could easily cause problems.

 

However, I don't actually own the game and when I'm at work I'm often working on other stuff now that fills up a fair bit of my day (or at least, my computer). What's the description of Crushing Prison, and how would you improve it?

Edited November 10, 2009 by alanschu

[Aristes]

I've restarted my game on hard. It's not that it was too easy so much as I thought it might be interesting to see the difference in the early part. My character is by and large the same. I switched out lightning for ice. I just think the winter's grasp is a better spell than lightning bolt. I plan on taking some healing spells. I toyed with the idea of being a straight healer, but went the dps route instead. I mostly went for the same look, but I changed the hair a bit. I usually make one or two characters before I finish any game.

[alanschu]

Winter's Grasp probably is a better spell than lightning bolt. Though I think the later lightning spells are better than Blizzard (cone of cold is just so useful though).

[Monte Carlo]

Alan,

 

Seeing as you are kind enough to drop by these threads, a quick question. When QA'ing was there a suggested critical path? For example, is there an expectation that most parties will stomp off to Redcliffe then, in turn, be led to the mage tower? (that would make sense, I decided retrospectively).

 

No biggie, it's just that I headed east and ended up helping the Dalish elves and found the boss fight of that quest virtually impossible to finish. I ended up poking around the DLC quests to bump my levels up and now, at level 12, I'm finally in the mage tower and finding it embarrassingly easy (it's not as if I'm a mentat, I've yet to do the Brescilian woods boss-fight having had my arse kicked several times trying and dragging a rogue around has only added to the problem).

 

What do you think about the scaling? And do you think the complaints about rogues are valid (my alt.account on the social networking site has led me to espy many players with similar views)? Valid enough for them to be patched, perhaps?

 

Cheers

MC

[HoonDing]

^I think the game wants you to go to Mage Tower first, no matter what NPCs advise you to do. Morrigan's suggestion is... ridiculous, no?

 

I'm really glad I didn't go to Redcliffe first after Lothering. Without Cone of Cold, Force field or Earthquake I guess I'd be having a *hard* time there...

[Lare Kikkeli]

Damn, I'm torn between starting as a thief or a mage. What are the pros and cons of each? Is this like BG2 in the regard that there's an abudance of some classes as NPCs while some have been forgotten completely?

[Aram]

I just spent a goddamn weekend and a monday on this game, like 40 of 72 hours playing--the rest sleeping. Holy ****, I enjoyed that sucker. I enjoyed that sucker a lot. It's like 1998 again. I'll be damned.

 

I already want to replay it. Got to take a break though.

[alanschu]

Seeing as you are kind enough to drop by these threads, a quick question. When QA'ing was there a suggested critical path? For example, is there an expectation that most parties will stomp off to Redcliffe then, in turn, be led to the mage tower? (that would make sense, I decided retrospectively).

 

I specifically wasn't suggested a critical path, though after dying a few times during the opening encounter at Orzammar as my second plot, I did learn that Orzammar is typically considered one that should be done later. In my opinion, the best one to do first is the Broken Circle. The buffs there are very, very useful (and probably helped me not notice the rogue issues to the extent that others are).

 

Though my playthrough was: Redcliffe, Broken Circle, Denerim-Urn, Brecilian Forest, Orzammar. In my opinion, the best type of "critical path" I would say would be to move Broken Circle to the front, and keep the rest the same.

 

 

I didn't really have an issue with the scaling. The first fight in Orzammar gated me to do Broken Circle next. I did find Redcliffe castle fairly difficult in part because I was like "WTF I'm dying??" and there's rather large numbers of guys in that one. With no healer I was chewing through potions (and gave Morrigan a healing spell haha). I found some places easier, and some places harder, similar to my experiences in older RPGs.

 

 

As for the rogue, I feel the complaints about the rogues are valid in so much as there's a fair bit of discussion about it. In my personal experience I didn't find my PC rogue to be a handicap. I did find Leliana to be not that effective, but I also feel that until end game talents, Archery isn't all that useful.

 

As my rogue though, I rarely got hit. I set Alistair's tactics to attack whomever I was attacking, and with his threaten and taunt, I rarely pulled aggro and hence, didn't really feel as though my rogue was dying a lot. Damage is a subjective thing, and since it was my first time playing the game, I don't feel as though I could really say at the time if the damage was subpar. I didn't feel ineffective, though from the get go I went with a sword mainhand, dagger offhand, and went dual swords when it was available. I did make a mistake early, and picked up Dual Striking (not very useful) and took a bit too long to get Momentum. I didn't really focus on combat skills directly though (was "stuck" at dual weapon sweep for a long time), picking up level 2 stealth, keeping up on lockpicking. My combat abilities were fairly spread out, with a sort of focus on Lethality, as well as the passive dual weapon feats. At the start of the game, I did go into most fights stealthed, meaning that other characters typically received the default aggro (usually Alistair, which is what i wanted).

 

 

As I said though, I will be bringing this up a bit more thoroughly tomorrow. I did briefly talk about it before a different meeting today, and there was some comments about the hotfix for the dexterity fix (though most were worried if it'd up the difficulty too much, since we did no play testing with that mechanic in the way that the hotfix is). I may disagree that the TWF rogue is gimped, but I'm not arrogant enough to assume that everyone else just needs to L2P

[Monte Carlo]

The rogue issue is simple - people want a light fighter with some meaningful, chunky skills. Not a support guy (especially as the player character).

 

If a rogue can scout, be an effective archer (you mention, and I agree, the general pointlessness of archery - the enemy have the advantage of using six or seven of the suckers in a cover / attrition role), scout and have a couple of decent melee skills (that don't require intense in-combat management) then I think we are away and running. As it stands, the rogue is the weak link in a tough tag team, especially in mob combat.

 

Imoen chick dies as much as her namesake. So I gave her archery. So she's useless, or simply not as useful as the other NPCs. I'm spending an inordinate amount of effort keeping her alive.

 

Honestly, if lock-picking was a cross-class skill (modders please note) I wouldn't bother at all, I'd be rolling over Ferelden like a panzer division with my uber-armoured sword and board protagonist, Alistair, Sten and Morrigan in the artillery support role!

[HoonDing]

I'm looking forward to seeing whether Zevran is a better fighter. I guess he'll be a dual-wielding specialist with some stealth skills, which would be nice.

 

I only use Imoen chick in the first phases of entering a town when it's all about chatting up people and I have the opportunity to influence her, but as soon as the fighting is starting I swap her for another mage.

 

The tier 4 archery skills seem pretty nice, though... but with the destruction mages can rain down on enemies, who cares?

Edited November 10, 2009 by virumor

[Azure79]

Have to agree with most people on the Rogue. Leliana was an archer and Zevran was a dual blade rogue. Whenever they were in my party, I spent a lot of time trying to keep them alive. I found the best party was two sword and shield fighters and two mages.

 

I really do like scattershot though.

[Monte Carlo]

^ The people have spoken.

 

As someone who likes playing rogues, can they please be fixed?

[Lare Kikkeli]

Ok so making your PC a rogue would be a huge waste right? Or is having a rogue necessary, just useless in combat?

[Monte Carlo]

^ Honestly, the rogue is pretty much a spare part.

 

They are sub-par archers, their backstab requires excessive in-combat attention (considering how hectic it can get), the ability to throw grenades is OK but not as good as a spell, the locked containers never contain plot-critical items (if they did you can get a key) and de-trapping is useful but not essential given how quickly you regenerate health after combat.

 

They are, basically, sub-par. The other classes have meaningful, clearly defined roles in a game of brutal melee combat, i.e. fighting and spellcasting.

 

I'm happy to be educated by someone who has studied this class and mastered it, please share, I suspect it's gimpiness will make it the class of choice for the expert player looking for a challenge in the future. But as it stands give me three warriors and a mage any day, or two mages and two warriors.

[alanschu]

The rogue issue is simple - people want a light fighter with some meaningful, chunky skills. Not a support guy (especially as the player character).

 

I think there just might be nuances of the class that perhaps aren't as clear. The consensus at work was that the dual wield spec of choice was to go large weapons (swords, maces, etc), and not daggers.

 

 

If a rogue can scout, be an effective archer (you mention, and I agree, the general pointlessness of archery - the enemy have the advantage of using six or seven of the suckers in a cover / attrition role), scout and have a couple of decent melee skills (that don't require intense in-combat management) then I think we are away and running. As it stands, the rogue is the weak link in a tough tag team, especially in mob combat.

.

 

Once Alistair got his taunt off, I would typically spam Dual Weapon Sweep (I used this ability all the time, even on a single target) and whirlwind and seemed to do good damage. Morrigan was definitely better in this regard, but she also had friendly fire concerns.

 

For mob combat though, I think it's best to still have the tank soak everything, and not have your rogue go off and fight something else. Am I correct that a lot of the concerns is in the one-on-one fighting?

 

 

The people have spoken.

 

Just to make sure this is clear, I cannot promise anything.

Edited November 10, 2009 by alanschu

[Aristes]

My impression is that I'll try a rogue after I've played my mage. I agree that they require a large amount of micromanagement, but I think it's a great way to make the game more challenging. I disagree with folks who think that Bioware made a mistake in designing the class. Sure, maybe they could have made them more powerful, at least that's my impression based on limited use of the rogue class, but I don't think every class needs to be as powerful as the others. Complete balance between classes tends to render them boring and I like the idea that you play the role you enjoy. Frankly, a lot of folks who think the rogue class sounds cool will probably simply start one and play the game. Unless they frequent the boards to hear all the bitching, they'll simply figure that's what the rogue class does. Now, if I try to play the rogue class and cannot even finish the game on hard, let alone nightmare, I'll rethink the situation. As it stands now, I just figure I'll have to be trickier.

[Monte Carlo]

Alan, if the other two classes weren't quite so strong and fun to play I doubt this would be a major issue.

 

I can't praise the design of the mage class enough, they are really good fun to play. I think the sowrd & shield warrior is slightly OTT (in a good way), to the extent that my attempt to build a dual-wielding warrior was quickly dropped in favour of the Walking Panzer.

[alanschu]

I personally disagree that the warrior class is strong

 

Though I don't have any experience with the two-hander admittedly haha.

 

The most powerful party I have seen that made the game laughably easy was 3 mages and a tank.

[Monte Carlo]

Zweihander warriors die surprisingly easier - basically they need to be used (ironically) like BG2 rogues backstabbing - step in / use 2H uber-damage ability / step back (behind the shield dude). This is how I work with my party - I taunt and suck up damage with my walking shield schtick and Sten steps around hacking at people. He dies quite a lot, and I've given him the best armour I can find.

[HoonDing]

I'm pretty sure a PC mage together with Shale can own the entire game (at least on normal). Shale can do everything, taunting, ranged, earth quaking. And he's hilarious to boot.

[Azure79]

I personally disagree that the warrior class is strong

 

Though I don't have any experience with the two-hander admittedly haha.

 

The most powerful party I have seen that made the game laughably easy was 3 mages and a tank.

 

I can definitely see the potential in that party.

 

I think my biggest gripe about rogues is not that they're not effective frontline fighters. I don't expect them to be. Its the general lack of options I have when I enter combat with the rogue. They are good for scouting out areas with stealth and disabling traps beforehand, but once combat is initiated they take a backseat.

 

For one thing, they can't enter stealth again in combat mode, even if the line of sight between enemy and rogue is broken. I remember in BG, where one my favorite things to do was micromanage my thief and have him/her break line of sight, stealth and go backstab. Can't do that in DA.

 

Of course its not as crucial in DA since backstab occurs even out of stealth, but it was fun confusing enemies and having my thief disappear and popping out to finish someone off.

 

I think rogues should be given their own combat tree that specializes in quick in and out attacks that confuse and hamper the enemy. The reason the other trees(besides archery) don't work as well is because you need to be on the frontlines, where the rogue's who aren't defensibly equipped are quickly overwhelmed and killed.

 

I can think of a couple.

 

Hamstring: The Rogue flanks his opponent and delivers a blow to the legs. If hit the enemy is unable to move for the rest of the encounter, unless the injury is treated.

 

Cripple: The rogue flanks the opponent and delivers a blow under the arm. The arm is crippled and the enemy cannot attack unless injury is treated.

 

Confuse: The rogue uses his guile, movement and insults to confuse enemies into attacking each other. If this happens on a critical, all enemies in the immediate vicinity of the rogue attack each other for a short time.

 

Invisibility: The rogue uses the chaos of combat and his acrobatics to make it seem like he disappeared. Enemies will lose sight of the rogue, and the rogue is free to flank, or run away to heal.

 

Knockout: While stealthed the rogue delivers a jarring blow to the head and temporarily knocks an opponent out.

 

I mean does it say anything when in the game a 4th tier rogue skill is 'Feign Death'?

[Gromnir]

"Just to be clear, are you saying that you're getting an invincible character that doesn't attack you either, keeping you combat indefinitely?"

 

yes

[Majek]

I must rally be weird then with my killer rogue. Maybe it's just all the DLC items that make him better than warriros.

 

And i thought that with level 4 Sneak you can sneak even in combat mode.

[Rosbjerg]

The most powerful party I have seen that made the game laughably easy was 3 mages and a tank.

I'm pretty sure a PC mage together with Shale can own the entire game.

 

A bard and an Assassin with 2 mages can definitely destroy everything as well.. The bard can stun enemies with a special ability that renders the bard immoble. Enemies just going in and out of stun after that it seems, the assassin (or is it rouge?) has an ability that causes automatic critical when opponets are stunned - meaning you take down most encounters in no time.. Couple that with petrify and cone of cold from the mages and you have a shattering experience for your misfortunate opponents.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Looks like this game needs rebalancing mods straight out of the box.