Dragon Age Discussion

[Oner]

your inability to use golem and other shapes is not Gromnir's problem. regardless, the speed with which the golem moves is not only reasonable in context of the game, it is balanced.

I guess reading comprehension is a difficult skill to acquire.

[Syraxis]

To me, it's a disservice to Obsidian to compare it to BIS. BIS was a failed division of a company barely hanging on for dear live while Obsidian has made mostly successful sequels to successful games. And, outside of the cancelation of one of their proposed games, they seem to be doing okay as a company.

 

Y' know, I never thought of it like that...

[Gromnir]

your inability to use golem and other shapes is not Gromnir's problem. regardless, the speed with which the golem moves is not only reasonable in context of the game, it is balanced.

I guess reading comprehension is a difficult skill to acquire.

 

no, we read just fine. as a golem (or another shape as you can change on the fly) the ogres rarely touched Gromnir. you misuse skills o' golem and other shapes is not a flaw in game.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps getting into serious spoiler stuff.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Gromnir

[Oner]

See, can't read.

[Gromnir]

"Sorry, you're missing the point. An ogre fight consists of sitting there, waiting for the ogre to finish spamming his skills so I can use 2 skills on 'im. Everything else is waiting for the golem to slowly get up (fun fact: enemies get up faster from knockdowns than you, a fireball and a melee group hug kindly demonstrated it to me) just to be knocked down again. Boring and unfair.

Besides, the drawback of the golem is weakness against magic. You couldn't even beat the ogre without the golem morph, so it's not like you have a choice."

 

Gromnir beat ogres straight up (as a golem) multiple times... also beat with other shapes and combos. we read just fine. your failures (reading and otherwise) is not our problem. again, 'cause you seem to need spelled out in detail... if your golem were as quick as ogre there would be no need for tactics. is balanced and reasonable.

 

besides which, we recall 3 skills/abilities of golem: a ranged attack, an area effect stunning attack, and a melee slam when in close and personal. can't figure out how to use right?

 

...

 

'cause we not wanna double-post...

 

has anybody genuine figured out how bows and daggers is current implemented in this game? short bows seems overpowered compared to longbows... which seems odd. am also not sure what is up with daggers: str, dex and cunning all seems to figure into the puzzle, but sometimes the numbers not seem to make much sense to Gromnir.

 

*shrug*

 

am having fun, but is some... oddities. inventory is still annoying, but we now have 'nuff gold to buy additional inventory. claudia black's character turned out to be a useful caster, but we chose far too many lame spells for wynne. the dog in da is similar to dog in fo3 in that it will find stuff for you. too bad for Gromnir we once discovered a tier 4 staff this way. now, after we clear an area, we go back through everyplace covered with the bard chick (to open chests and disarm traps we has already gotten past) and dog (to find us helmets, dirty pantaloons and soggy cake). am suspecting that 'tween inventory silliness and our semi-auto retracing, we is adding 10% empty hours to gameplay total.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 13, 2009 by Gromnir

[Niten_Ryu]

My rogue is still gimpy at level 12 but less then before. Leliana (or the redhead rogue as I often forget her name) is getting bit better too, thanks to Arrow of Slaying and good bow (too to drop Blood Mages from great distances). I also changed templar tank to Shale and Wynne is still on healing spot. Finally it start to feel like I have somewhat balanced team. I tested 2 mages on my team but I found it really hard not to cheese thru encounters as it's so stupidly easy with CC + AoE damage. Something like earthquake + grease + fireball is fun but ultimately destroy all balance. Amount of mages affect game difficulty more then actual difficulty settings. I find it really odd that Bioware managed to mess up class balance this badly, especially since there's only 3 classes (and differences between rogues and warriors are small).

 

Stamina vs. mana system is the main failure. It's even bigger blunder then mages suprime ability to CC and AoE. Mage can drink unlimited amount of mana potions (well, your cash reserves are only thing that might limit it but even full stack of dust and flasks are very cheap) but there's only slow means to regenerate stamina. Bard song, Wynnes spell ect ect work very slowly. Heck, my rogues are still in low level light armor (and Shale don't have "real" armor at all) and I'm still out of stamina all the time. Patch in stamina potions or increase stamina gain. It's not like Bioware had to reinvent the wheel as WoW (among other games) have perfectly fine energy / stamina system already developed and tested.

 

That was the bitter part, now to more positive things. I really enjoyed dragon aggro system. It was great to watch it to take off and fly to the characters who did most of the damage. I was sure that I'll outsmart it right away but it either wiped aggro list from time to time or had some distance reductions (like in many MMOGs) in aggro. It kicked Shale away and moved to my archers or healer.

 

Other thing that I really enjoyed was the mage tower after I got

burning man form

. I was great to leave gimpy rogue form behind and melt everyone. And then it got even better when I got

golem form

. It reminded me of few WoW encounters and I played rest of that area without pause as it was fun to change forms real time and use different abilities. While I don't like mod in general, I'd try solo run with such character.

[Enoch]

A thought just occurred. I'm probably far from the first person to mention this, but based on the animation when using them and on the fact that they require a flask to create, I don't think that Bioware knows what a "poultice" is.

[Maria Caliban]

A thought just occurred. I'm probably far from the first person to mention this, but based on the animation when using them and on the fact that they require a flask to create, I don't think that Bioware knows what a "poultice" is.

 

Pretty much. I might be a throwback from the time when there were no health potions, but you'd think with a half-dozen writers, someone might have noticed the wrong term.

 

That said, though, can Darkspawn speak? Since there are some that can do magic & some that wear fancy armour (Alpha Hurlock/Genlock) there should at least be some intelligence involved..

 

Yes. There are intelligent darkspawn that can speak and make plans. The Architect even has his own plan for ending the Blights.

What I don't understand is what the Darkspawn are doing while you cruise around country. Busy eating the dead? And what the hell does gen/hurlock mean anyway?

They’re taking over the country while you cruise around it. If you look at the world map while you travel, the blackness that spreads from the bottom is how far they’ve gotten.

 

I know ‘loch’ means man but don’t recall the rest.

 

And they're slowly marching to the capital. Sleep at day, move 5 feet at night. Besides what's the in game time frame of the whole game anyway? 2 weeks? a month?

 

It takes over a year. For instance, if you go to Orzimmar after Redcliffe (part 1) and the Circle Tower, someone will tell you that the middle son (dwarven noble origin) died six months ago and his father soon after. The elven riots were also prompted by the PC in the city elf origin and someone tells you that it’s been ‘months.’

Edited November 13, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Gromnir]

A thought just occurred. I'm probably far from the first person to mention this, but based on the animation when using them and on the fact that they require a flask to create, I don't think that Bioware knows what a "poultice" is.

 

am not sure why the "poultice" language were adopted, but if they had actually spent man-hours animating more appropriate they woulda' been deserving o' a swift kick to the temple. haven't looked close enough at the icon to see if it looks like a salve/balm/goo kinda thing... am recollecting that the icon picture is kinda a cube thing as 'posed to a flask.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

edit: icon shows a little pot-thingie for poultice. could arguably be the goo that comprises active ingredients in a poultice... is simply hard to imagine the appropriate manner to apply during combat.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Gromnir

[Magister Lajciak]

I am doing the Broken Circle quest and am having serious inventory issues. Being shut in the tower means I cannot simply leave to sell my items to a merchant. I have fully packed all four of my characters with gear and have even resorted to giving them weapons/equipment that is different (to take advantage of the stacking of the same equipment) even if it is inferior, but alas that is not enough. I have reached the fourth floor of the tower and have no more inventory space. I have found one chest where it might be possible to store stuff and would leave some simply lying on the ground - but will it be possible to return to this area to pick it up later as well as to get stuff I store in the chest?

[Tigranes]

1) Stacking of the same types of armour does not help. 10 Potions count for 1 inventory slot, but 3 leather gloves count for 3 slots.

2) Items in chests should hold, but not sure about leaving on the ground.

3) If you are on floor 4 you are not far away. Just throw away items that you aren't very valuable - e.g. things like lifestones and frozen lightning are so cheap that you're much better off just keeping things of substantial value. In the time it takes you to go back and forth to sell everything you might as well go do something else, it'd be more profitable.

[Magister Lajciak]

1) Stacking of the same types of armour does not help. 10 Potions count for 1 inventory slot, but 3 leather gloves count for 3 slots.

2) Items in chests should hold, but not sure about leaving on the ground.

3) If you are on floor 4 you are not far away. Just throw away items that you aren't very valuable - e.g. things like lifestones and frozen lightning are so cheap that you're much better off just keeping things of substantial value. In the time it takes you to go back and forth to sell everything you might as well go do something else, it'd be more profitable.

 

Thanks - so that means I will be able to come back to the area, right?

[Tigranes]

Yes.

[Magister Lajciak]

Yes.

 

OK, thanks!

[Hurlshort]

Money also starts becoming pretty easy to come by around the halfway point. As long as you aren't planning on buying any of those 100 gold things, at least.

[Maria Caliban]

Several times I've left an area and then come back to loot bodies.

[~Di]

I've gotten permission from Greagoir to enter the Circle Tower, but I can't enter it. Something is totally FUBAR'd. Does anyone know what might be wrong here?

[Maria Caliban]

I've gotten permission from Greagoir to enter the Circle Tower, but I can't enter it. Something is totally FUBAR'd. Does anyone know what might be wrong here?

 

You mean you click on the door and nothing happens?

[Asol]

My rogue is still gimpy at level 12 but less then before. Something like earthquake + grease + fireball is fun but ultimately destroy all balance. Amount of mages affect game difficulty more then actual difficulty settings. I find it really odd that Bioware managed to mess up class balance this badly, especially since there's only 3 classes (and differences between rogues and warriors are small).

 

Stamina vs. mana system is the main failure. It's even bigger blunder then mages suprime ability to CC and AoE.

 

These are the most noticeable design quirks to me, especially after taking all the time to develop their own fantasy IP its a wonder they biffed the class balance so bad, mages out and out own rogues and warriors are just kind of there in comparison. Rogue also has potential early game pitfalls that almost require some fore knowledge of mechanics etc. These are not killers but kind of surprising after the time going into the game.

 

Also playing on hard the difficulty is uneven after level 14 or so most fights are a faceroll with the ocassional speed bump here and there. Time sinks have been over engineered into aspects of the game. I have worked to the lands meet for what seems like ages and had a couple days sessions in the orzammar lines. Rather have shorter more gratifying areas and chapters, then again I am never one of the ones complaining if a game doesn't last weeks and weeks or XX hours.

 

On the positives battles are fun even if balance can be off kilter, the stories and different ethical dilemas I am enjoying a lot. I think the NPCs are generally top notch.

[Volourn]

What game exists where mages aren't super powerful? Mages should be more pwoerful than rogues, and warriors. That said, a warrior can kill a mage rather quick in DA. Rogues are only supposed to be supporters not front line. The balance is fine.

 

Mages are (relatively) rare, and have so many things against them like the chantry trying to control them, the populace not being huge fans of them, the slippery slop to the dark side they can follow. All that fun stuff.

 

Not all things are created equal.

 

P.S. Just finished The Circle Tower, and Redcliffe. Fun times, fun times in deed.

 

P.S.S. The map is DA awesome.

[Asol]

This is a cop out, mages have the lion share of all the bells and whistles, why on earth does rogue have a summoning tree(which tanks pretty effective)? Probably because mages were already way too overpowered.

 

The stamina issue could use an adjustment, rogues can slack and save for burst damage warriors generally need to spam abilities and end up waiting for stam, there is no potion cap or cooldown so mages have no real governor to spaming cooldowns.

 

Mages tank, cc, dps and heal and affect difficulty more than the difficulty slider, I would call that fine balance for sure.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Asol

[Monte Carlo]

Vol, take your fanboy hat off for a second, the class balance is badly out of kilter.

 

Your perceptions of what archetypical class should and shouldn't be able to do is fine, but it can't be applied to a game where you choose a class as a protagonist. All should have potent abilities. I've tinkered with all of them and the mage class is over-powered (OK, in a fun way) by comparison. The warrior is great. The rogue is... meh.

 

I think the developers know this. As I've written previously, underpowered backstab, the ability to throw bombs and open containers full of old boots is trifling compared to the mobile artillery piece that is the Dragon Age mage class.

 

I honestly expect a re-balancing patch, re-calibrating the stat requirements for rogue skills would be a start. Rogues need high STR (to wear armour, wield weapons... their most potent DW skills involve full size melee weapons), CUNNING and DEX. It's tough. Plus if they want to enjoy the bread and butter rogue skills they'll never have enough points for anything else, they'll only be average at everything (answer? Give rogues one point in stealing, traps / locks and poison at level 2 or 3 as a bonus. Warrior? point dump into STR and CON. Mage? point dump into MAGIC and WILL. Then race up the appropriate skill / spell tree.

 

Rogue? Er... bit of this, bit of that unless you want to uber-specialise and still be a second rate melee fighter or gimpy archer.

 

DA shows that making your own ruleset is tough, especially balancing. There are only three classes, there should have been none. Why, during the testing phase, didn't someone say to the lead designer, "look, this class is OK but compared to the other two it's.... crap." Or was there a bit of Emperor's New Clothes going on?

 

Cheers

MC

[Volourn]

The class balance is fine. A rogue should NOT be an equal of a mage or a fighter in combat. Period. Any system that lets a rogue be the equal to a mage or rogue is a broken system. NO MATTER who makes it. If a rogue is the equal to a mage than it ruins the who concept of magic, imo. Espicially since DA lore goes out of its way to illustrate how special and unique mages are.

 

Rogues are sueful. That's all that matters. A rogue should not be able to be equal to a fighter or mage in a straight up fight (unless the mage happened to focus on weaker combat spells).

 

The argument of I'm just a fanboy is lame when I have my fair share of criticisms of BIO games. Heck, I am one of the ones who blasted the sue of mana in the game. And, there are other design decisions I disagree with. Mages being 'overpwoered' is not one of them. It's simple to me, if you play the game with 3 mages in your party (the max allowed); you SHOULD have an easier time than a party with 3 rogues (the max allowed) does.

 

Not all parties should be created equal.

 

P.S. Having a truly 'classless' system would kinda hurt the who mage lore, imo. That said, they could have been fine with 2 'classes' imo. Spellcaster and Non spellcaster

 

P.S.S. I'm surprised there wasn't a PC only Grey Warden specialty class. Would ahve been cool to see what abilities they could have come up with for it. ...

Edited November 13, 2009 by Volourn

[Monte Carlo]

For the love of god Vol, think about what your saying with this "some classes should be crap it's just the way things are" schtick.

 

Why would anyone play the class? Just think about it... imagine the character generation screen rubric:

 

Warrior - Mighty champion of arms who launches himself into the enemy horde, a whirlwind of steel!

 

Mage - Arcane master, besting armies with spells of fire and ice!

 

Rogue - Well, someone's gotta be the gimp, go wake him up we need that barrel searched.

 

Hmmm.

[Gromnir]

mages is artillery. am not surprised that people is impressed by the power o' mages, but am not seeing as unbalanced. mages and warriors each fulfill a role. if there is a problem it is that there is a small number o' busted spells... relative too powerful. lack o' stamina potions ain't needed neither. our 2-h warrior, without using mighty blow and scoring criticals, is doing base +50 points o' damage per hit and we ain't more than a little over 1/2 through game. if warriors were getting stamina potions, balance would be serious broken. wotc spent years playtesting d&d 3.0. am always wondering how certain spells managed to make it into final release. harm? even the recent pathfinder rpg went through some significant revisions 'tween the beta and final release. we were expecting some busted spells... is more than we expected, but game is still fun.

 

 

now rogues, on the other hand, is the bastard child o' crpg preconceptions and some bad number crunching by bio. the developers felt like they needed a third class, so they gimp a warrior, and give it some thiefy and sneaky abilities. is no point to be making a rogue class for da... wanna make a dex-based combatant with high skills? why not allow a warrior to do that stuff? Gromnir genuine wanna play a rogue on our next playthrough, but there were no reason for bio to make such a class... 'specially as it is now.

 

btw, with our warrior we ain't point dumping str and con. am putting a good number o' points into willpower and dex too... for stamina and defense. is perhaps a bad build, but it seems to work well enough.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 13, 2009 by Gromnir