Dragon Age Discussion

[Volourn]

*yawn*

 

 

So.. how 'bout DA?

[~Di]

Well, I'm playing a human rogue. Yes, she is gimped, but I'm still having fun with her. She's a backstabber, not a bow gal, so I want the Assassin specialization... but when I finally am "old" enough to choose a specialization, I find they are all locked. I know that

Zevran will teach it too me, AFTER I find him and AFTER I spend about 20 hours warming him up...

... But is there any other way for me to unlock the Assassination specialization? I'm currently wandering the Fade, and when I finally get out I'd really like those Assassin bonuses.

 

There should be a book somewhere in Denerim IIRC. Check the merchants.

 

Will do! I just hope I can afford it.

 

Thanks.

 

Well you can always save, buy the book (selling everything you own if you need extra cash), learn it, then reload and have the specialisation open.

 

 

Yes, it's sort of cheating, but cheating the the same way that overclocking is stealing.

 

Woot! I did not know that. Hell yes, I'll cheat. I'm not proud.

[WDeranged]

Anyone else think they should have called the game Dragon Age : Orzammar?

 

 

I just got there after doing the circle and the dalish...it's sodding huge, huge like how I expected Denerim City to be.

 

Up until this point I've been quite underwhelmed with the locations but impressed with the quests, Orzammar however is kicking well rounded arse.

 

 

On the subject of Denerim,

does the city open up more after the landsmeet?, being stuck in the market, brothel and backstreets is pretty dull.

 

Edited November 15, 2009 by WDeranged

[Deraldin]

Anyone else think they should have called the game Dragon Age : Orzammar?

 

 

I just got there after doing the circle and the dalish...it's sodding huge, huge like how I expected Denerim City to be.

 

Up until this point I've been quite underwhelmed with the locations but impressed with the quests, Orzammar however is kicking well rounded arse.

 

 

On the subject of Denerim,

does the city open up more after the landsmeet?, being stuck in the market, brothel and backstreets is pretty dull.

 

On Denerim:

You get to go to the Alienage and the Arl's place just before the Landsmeet. Depending on how good you are, you may or may not make a small trip to Fort Drakon as well. Overall I was pretty disappointed in Denerim as a city. There just didn't seem to be all that much to it.

 

Also, Orzammar does indeed kick copious amounts of ass.

 

[Oner]

That

Urn guarding dragon

sure was jarring. Almost killed it the first time without problem, but it grabbed and "killed" my PC twice just before it died.

[Gromnir]

That

Urn guarding dragon

sure was jarring. Almost killed it the first time without problem, but it grabbed and "killed" my PC twice just before it died.

 

 

so far, the only way we has discovered to effective interrupt a Grab is to simultaneous cast force field on the critter in question... otherwise is pretty much insta-death. have run into 2 genuine versions o' the beastie in question (the one in the forest ruins is a pip-squeak by comparison and we not count) and both times we were able to interrupt a grab with a timely force field. 'course, the critter has ridiculous resistance, so even force field is probably having vegas odds of success.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 15, 2009 by Gromnir

[Tigranes]

Cone of cold or any other immobilisation effect appears to interrupt the Grab as well, or at least stop it long enough to heal?

[HoonDing]

Grab & Slap is the reason why you need the tank at the flank always.

 

Put tank at the flank, let the tank taunt, then cast Force Field on tank & laugh as the dragon keeps attacking your invulnerable tank while your mages are tearing it apart.

 

At least, this is the strategy that works on Normal difficulty. Maybe dragon is smarter on Hard/Nightmare?

Edited November 15, 2009 by virumor

[alanschu]

It is possible to heal the tank through the grab (as that is what my strategy entailed HAHA). My strategy may not be the most optimal

[Gromnir]

Grab & Slap is the reason why you need the tank at the flank always.

 

Put tank at the flank, let the tank taunt, then cast Force Field on tank & laugh as the dragon keeps attacking your invulnerable tank while your mages are tearing it apart.

 

At least, this is the strategy that works on Normal difficulty. Maybe dragon is smarter on Hard/Nightmare?

 

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.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Gromnir

[alanschu]

I was also playing on normal, and might have been a higher level with more HP and stronger heals. I did have two healers on Alistair.

[TheHarlequin]

HINT: NO game EVER, modern or otherwise, is bug free.

 

I generally stopped replying to you however when you spout off totally incorrect BS I feel the need to play the role of teacher. In fact many games in the past have been bug free. I know I wrote a few multi-player door bbs games in the 80s/early 90s. Were they bug free first time run? No, however did they eventually get bug free by release? yes. Point is programming in BASIC a 150K game in the late 80s vs todays 250meg+ code base today is VASTLY different and I can say with certainty -some- games in the past back then were bug free. I wrote some and played others that were. I specificly stated 'modern' as I have yet to see a modern AAA game that didn't need patches or still did even after the EoL was reached. Example, even today there still bugs (though not game breaking mostly combat mechanics) in games like nwn1 and bg2.

 

Never were a progammer back in the day I take it. Clearly.

[mr insomniac]

The other day I attempted to 'resume game' too quickly, ie before i'd logged in to the server, and I got a popup saying (something like) some or all of the DLC may not be available because I wasn't logged in. So I waited until I was logged in and everything was fine. Some of the bugs people are experiencing with the DLC may be related to that.

 

I've been having a blast with DA, especially once I got used to the controls and the camera. Figuring out the tactics mechanism is a work in progress, but once I figured out how to get Leliana to stop attacking the same opponent I was fighting, no matter who I told her to attack, I've been happy. My only nitpicky annoyance to this point is the abundance of locked chests, especially in the early parts of the game and you possibly have no rogue. Where's the bash option or the knock spell? My warrior can knock darkspawn flying with his shield, he can't break open a lock? Meh, it's a minor thing only. Haven't experienced any bugs that I'm aware of, and I'm pretty impressed with how smoothly my rig can run the game.

[Oner]

Life ward didn't seem very effective but it did come in handy. Stone fist interrupted the grab once, but it's impossible to time and almost never works.

[Meshugger]

Hey guys! I haven't bought it yet. Is it still awesome or has the novelty weared off already?

[Gorth]

Hey guys! I haven't bought it yet. Is it still awesome or has the novelty weared off already?

I've only been playing it for a day, but impressions so far:

 

I've found crates.

I've bashed rats.

I've got "Do you want to gather your party before venturing forth" messages.

I've got a pet (which I named "Elfeater").

I've got laid.

I've got my butt kicked by a small "boss"

An ogre

(due to bad preparation on my part)

Managed to kick that butt in return on the second fight, with one party member standing (with less than 10hp).

I've had to leave loot behind.

I don't even think I've seen any groan worthy dialogue yet (unlike Mass Effect, which I found had it in droves during my 30 minute stint on a colleagues xbox360).

 

Only silly thing is the comic book blood spatter which takes some of the "seriousness" out of the game.

 

I think they could have credited Peter Jackson for some of the battle scenes

[Tigranes]

I'm near the end of the game and the shine hasn't worn off. It stays solid throughout.

[Raithe]

The blood splatter is fine for the combat sequences.. but it's a bit out of place in the rest of it. I turned off the "persistent gore" to avoid that small annoyance factor

 

Although you can get the dog to lick you clean of blood...

[HoonDing]

Why is there blood splatter after fighting shades/wraiths/demons? Or any undead for that matter?

 

Anyway, I've finished Brazilian Forest. Juggernaut armour is looking pretty bad-ass.

Edited November 15, 2009 by virumor

[Enoch]

So, between Friday and yesterday, I finished the Mage's Circle and Honnleath. Currently a level 9 mage, generally adventuring with Alistair, Leliana, and one rotating spot. (I'll probably put Shale here now that I have him. He alone seems to understand that Fantasee Dialogue is best when played as camp.) The Elves are up next.

 

It has been fun so far. Playing on Normal, my first full-party wipe was

in the Great Hall of the Mages Tower-- when the first Arcane Horror I'd encountered opened the door at the far end and started spamming AoE spells while I was busy smacking around the zombies that had popped up. On the second try, I pulled all the zombies back into the previous room. The Horror was much more manageable engaged at close range.

Some of the fights in the Fade gave me trouble, too, but that was mostly a matter of guessing the wrong form to use. Also very difficult: The random encounter with

the merchant who had sold counterfeit ancient tomes to some of the tower Mages. (That damn Mage they had off on the cliff to the side got a very annoying Paralyze on my main character just as the fight started, before I could use any of my crowd-control spells.)

Dog and I were the only ones to come out of that one standing.

 

Oddity/possible bug: My mage is still using a standard Steel "Mage's Staff," which has 5% (I think) boosts to a few different damage types. (It's the one Wynne came with.) But the attack now seems to be doing only Cold-based damage, with the numbers showing up in blue and with cold-resistant enemies taking only 3-4 points per shot. Can anyone think of a legitimate reason why this should be happening?

Edited November 15, 2009 by Enoch

[Majek]

The properties don't show the kind of damage the staff does.

[Asol]

the staves do single element damage based on the staff when auto attacking the mods apply to spells of that school of damage.. ed also way late.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Asol

[Enoch]

The properties don't show the kind of damage the staff does.

Hmm... That's a puzzling design decision, to say the least. And there's even the spot on the character sheet that displays "Arcane Bolt" as the staff's effect-- 'type of damage' feedback would be appropriate to display there.

[Monte Carlo]

Hey guys! I haven't bought it yet. Is it still awesome or has the novelty weared off already?

 

The novelty hasn't worn off, it's a very solid game that is more than a respectful nod to the games of yore.

 

It has significant weakenesses - linearity, shoe-horning into a plot, some irritating NPCs... in Bio games these are a given and you have to put up with them.

 

For a first play-through, though, the plot is fun in a campy vanilla kind of way. The great NPCs make up for the weaker ones, for me Sten and Shale and even Zevran are worth the price of admission. I'm not really seeing this darkness thing, they've inserted some moral ambivalence that is refreshing compared to the D&D alignment-based 'Chaotic Stupid' approach. Now you can be fairly lawful evil and serve the greater good - the Chantry is good or bad depending on who you are, the elves can be as bigoted as the humans yadda yadda.

 

But where does it really shine? Enjoyable combat, clean, easy-on-the-eye graphics, brilliantly simple, fun spellcasting system and it's pretty darn big. You could make a great dungeon crawler with this engine, an IWD iteration of Dragon Age where you made your own characters and fought Darkspawn and Blood mages would rock. Given the modding interest and release of the toolset this is what, for me, makes this title the CRPG release of 2009/2010.

 

For all my harsh words and reservations (and some were too harsh) I take my hat off to Bio and give them, albeit through slightly gritted teeth, a hard-won 8.5 / 10 for this game.

 

If you liked BG2 and Diablo 2 and the Lord of the Rings movies (like I do on all three counts) then go and buy this game now.

 

Cheers

MC

[Enoch]

Heh. There's a Mage's Collective quest that involves doing a task for "Krebulash the Epithet." I'm guessing that "Epithet" was a placeholder that never got updated.