Dragon Age Tactics

[Volourn]

"This game isn't scaled for every class / specialisation / party combo... it couldn't be."

 

Yeha, but that shouldn't be shocking or surprising and is true for basically any RPG ever created. Play BG2 with a bard then play it with a mage.. which character is likely to have the easier time? Play BG2 with a part of all rogues then play with a part of all fighters then play with a party of all mages . This idea that a game should be set at a perfect difficulty for every character/party combination isn;'t true.

 

I mean, as an exmaple. Some in this threaD mentioned how they got Leliana to do upwards of 138 damage in an attack. My PC dwarf fighter never reached 100 damage in a single attack, IIRC. *shrug*

Edited November 30, 2009 by Volourn

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah, that was me.

 

Imoen-Chick did 138 and used all her stamina. And stood at the back. And died shortly afterwards.

 

Dwarf warrior can heft his shield, rely on his awesome hit points and dish out consistent damage.

 

Like you say all have strengths and weaknesses... but all these games are party based and there is an expectation that the classic 2 + 1 + 1 model will be followed (i.e. two combat capable characters, a spellcaster and a utility guy / cleric).

 

Cheers

MC

[HoonDing]

^I've had Imoen-Chick doing 153 damage with Marjolaine's Recurve... and it took away 1/3 HP of a Dwarven archer. *sigh*

 

It seems the Redcliffe battle is hard when one genuinely tries to save the militia schmucks... I don't bother with that.

[Gromnir]

^ Yeah, that was me.

 

Imoen-Chick did 138 and used all her stamina. And stood at the back. And died shortly afterwards.

 

Dwarf warrior can heft his shield, rely on his awesome hit points and dish out consistent damage.

 

Like you say all have strengths and weaknesses... but all these games are party based and there is an expectation that the classic 2 + 1 + 1 model will be followed (i.e. two combat capable characters, a spellcaster and a utility guy / cleric).

 

Cheers

MC

 

according to the heroic accomplishments, leliana, whom we almost never let out of camp, had a max single-hit damage of 438.

 

...

 

have absolutely no idea when that occurred. her toughest foe killed is listed as an arcane horror, and am not recalling having her along on any dragon fights.

 

our second time through game (on hard again), with a dual wielding rogue and at level 11-12 (after mage tower) did not have an issue with redcliffe... but we easily went through more than 9 lesser lyrium potions during the night battles. we knew the length o' battles and an optimal approach to dealing with combatants. allister and our rogue both had enchantable weapons with expert or journeyman cold iron runes respectively. we had wynne healing, petrifying and mind blasting as necessary, while morrigan were casting force field, cone of cold, winter kiss and heals. now, the first time through we hadn't even had morrigan level-up yet... so she had frost weapons but not cone o' cold, and her best offensive spell were winter kiss. no heal spell. no force field neither.

 

am recalling that mc mentioned he did soldier's peak and stone prisoner early, but assuming you hadn't...

 

few potions and a wizard with few spells... fact that we were a 2h fighter probable made little difference to initial difficulty. after a few minutes o' the night battle at redcliffe, morrigan were reduced to plugging away with her staff.... waiting for mind blast and winter kiss to regen.

 

the brazillian forest? as with most areas, you could inch towards daylight. take 1 battle at a time, heal-up, level-up, and move forward. the the brazilian forest were not containing 20 minute long battles that would consume your entire potion supply in one go. perhaps other folks have a different definition o' "first" as well. on hard, with a 7th level party and a limited potion supply (and 3 lumps o' lyrium in our inventory), am not seeing how redcliffe would be described as easier than the brazilian forest where you could wash-rinse-repeat at your own pace.

 

'course, if you were playing a mage at redcliffe... a player-built mage is a different beast than morrigan at level 7. have both of 'em in your party for redcliffe at level 7 would be different.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 30, 2009 by Gromnir

[SeanM]

On my first playthrough I did Redcliffe first. I had 2-3 militia alive at the end. I had to keep using my stunning talents and spells. I was never in control and was relieved when the attack was over.

 

On my next playthrough I did it second with two mages and still found it challenging. I ran down there, took out the two yellow ranked zombies first and from then on was fighting 3-5 zombies at a time.

 

 

I don't think there is an ideal first area. Each of them has drawbacks. Mage Tower is good because you get Wynne early which means you can choose more of her spells and there are free attribute boosts. But you are locked in till the end, fade can be frustrating, it is solo gameplay and some of the bosses can be hard.

 

There are tough moments in the Elf area where you get swarmed by werewolves, trees and skeletons. But I agree there is no difficulty spike, you can gradually inch your way through the level. However I did not get the peaceful resolution so had a hard final battle.

 

I found Redcliffe Castle ok. Cone of Cold was invaluable for the corridors and doorways. A lot of people find the courtyard battle hard. Orzammer should definitely be left for later.

Edited November 30, 2009 by SeanM

[Oner]

Nah. It's your training before the game starts. You think your character came into being in a vacuum?

Nah, we think our character learns what we want it to learn.

 

Are you truly trying to claim that mages are treated unfairly and are underpowered? Weird....

You're confusing talents with skills, big difference.

[Tigranes]

IMO the mage tower is worth going for early, just to get the attribute bonuses to the player character fast...

 

Question:

you can still buy infinite lyrium if you side with templars, right?

Screwed me over last time with the elfroot.

[Oner]

Question:

you can still buy infinite lyrium if you side with templars, right?

Screwed me over last time with the elfroot.

The quartermaster is a templar, so...I guess?

[Monte Carlo]

Skills & Talents, there's another half-arsed desgin decision...

 

Why is stealing one and lockpicking the other? The oddness of Combat Tactics slots has been dissected elsewhere. The whole thing is fugly, it's a fun game despite it not because of it and I strongly suspect an overhaul for the inevitable DA2.

 

Ditch the Rogue class and allow folks to make a light-fighter warrior with recon skills or a sneaky stealth mage or an archer / support mage. It really does solve the problem.

[HoonDing]

No biggie for me. Stealing/lockpicking = worthless.

 

Clearing out a dungeon, then returning with Leliana to open some locks & find only leather helmets & whitewood shortbows... is just embarassing.

 

There really should be an option to bash chests, or destroy them with magic, though.

[jaguars4ever]

The contents of the locked chests are an absolute disgrace IMO. Think you'll stumble across a lost artifact or at least something more useful than a cheese knife? Think again. The most interesting thing I've found in a chest is a "love letter" between two wealthy paramours. Joy.

[Deraldin]

The contents of the locked chests are an absolute disgrace IMO. Think you'll stumble across a lost artifact or at least something more useful than a cheese knife? Think again. The most interesting thing I've found in a chest is a "love letter" between two wealthy paramours. Joy.

 

Hey! That cheese knife is actually a pretty awesome dagger!

[HoonDing]

The contents of the locked chests are an absolute disgrace IMO. Think you'll stumble across a lost artifact or at least something more useful than a cheese knife? Think again. The most interesting thing I've found in a chest is a "love letter" between two wealthy paramours. Joy.

 

Hey! That cheese knife is actually a pretty awesome dagger!

But that lock wasn't pickable either.

[SeanM]

I think the loot in locked chests is deliberately mundane so people don't feel compelled to bring along a rogue.

 

They don't miss out on any unique or exciting loot. It is just average loot which they can sell. And ultimately accumulate enough money to buy something nice.

[Monte Carlo]

^ The eternal economic conundrum of Dragon Age - loot stuff so you can afford to buy a 5 gp rucksack so you can loot some more stuff. So you can afford a 7 gp rucksack. Ha ha ha.

[Deraldin]

The contents of the locked chests are an absolute disgrace IMO. Think you'll stumble across a lost artifact or at least something more useful than a cheese knife? Think again. The most interesting thing I've found in a chest is a "love letter" between two wealthy paramours. Joy.

 

Hey! That cheese knife is actually a pretty awesome dagger!

But that lock wasn't pickable either.

 

>_> <_< >_>

 

Where did I put my Butter Knife of Balduran...

[TheHarlequin]

IMO the mage tower is worth going for early, just to get the attribute bonuses to the player character fast...

 

Question:

you can still buy infinite lyrium if you side with templars, right?

Screwed me over last time with the elfroot.

 

Correct you can.

[TheHarlequin]

No biggie for me. Stealing/lockpicking = worthless.

 

Clearing out a dungeon, then returning with Leliana to open some locks & find only leather helmets & whitewood shortbows... is just embarassing.

 

There really should be an option to bash chests, or destroy them with magic, though.

 

Agreed. Should have taken a page from nwn2. If my str is high enough I can bash the lock open but risk breaking anything fragile inside (pots, gifts, etc)

Edited November 30, 2009 by TheHarlequin

[Volourn]

"No biggie for me. Stealing/lockpicking = worthless. "

 

Lockpicking is worth it simply for the xp which often is worth as much as killing 1 enemy. And, the loot brings more money in. Stealing is also very useful in getting one nice item during a certain side quest.

 

 

Wouldn't mind them allong you to break chests (and destroy all breakables).

[Junai]

having genuine lethal traps when your 2-man party might be absent a thief would be resulting in more than a little player frustration.

 

heh,, ok maybe a bigger party, and the class-specific challenge shouldn't necessarily have to be dealt with as a part of the main campaign. Reg. traps - they made an attempt in IWD2 with the rolling boulder in Dragon's Eye. The dungeon in Chult had a collapsing roof/wall which did 60-70 something hps. Other than that, most traps in bg/iwd/nwn resulted in little more than the loss of a potion of extra healing for me.

 

I guess combat oriented crpgs have to have combat-oriented thieves and mages, as well as fighters, but it would add some flavour if they implemented some class-specific stuff once in a while. A great aspect of BG2 was the main char controlling a stronghold/guild.

 

 

 

Ouch, Im OT here, but rp'ing and using strongholds / members of thief-guilds etc to acquire something or get vital info reg. the OC-story would open up for some interesting rp-STRATEGIES and TACTICS :D.

 

 

J.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Junai

[Tigranes]

Huh, nightmare is too easy.

 

Maybe my party is just a well-oiled killing machine, or I've gotten used to working the game, but on nightmare I've gone through Origins, Lothering, Shale, Redcliffe, and have zero party wipes, and a handful of character drops. I took on the Redcliffe night battle at level 8 and breezed through it saving most of the militia, the castle revenant copped it in 20 seconds and only the

Zevran and the Crows

ambush got me worried, because I switched off and their mage paralysed my mage and killed half the party. If I didn't know any better I'd say nightmare is bugged and is easier than Hard, but if that was really the case I'm sure someone would have said, already. Kind of disappointed, maybe I'll scout around for a slight difficulty mod that just raises the bar a bit.

 

At level 9,party is:

• mage PC (Blizzard line, Crushing Prison line, Mass Paralysis line, Healing spell); basically the crowd control / heal guy.
  
• Shale (Stoneheart line, going on Rock Mastery); the big tank to attract enemies and sit still, sometimes with force field.
  
• Sten (2H: Critical Strike line, going on Warrior tree and mighty blow); secondary man to shatter frozen folks, do some damage, etc.
  
• Leliana (Critical shot, general rogue abilities, aiming for Scattershot); surprisingly the best damage-dealer. With a crossbow and Rapid shot, poisons and grenades she's already doing 30-40 damage per hit and basically killing everything off while Shale takes the hit. Traps, too.
  

 

I think it's working out very well, wonder if I can make Sten any more effective or find him a good role. At the mage tower now, we'll see how it goes here.

[HoonDing]

What exactly is the difference between Nightmare & Hard? Do enemies do more damage, have more HP or simply have more resistances?

Edited December 1, 2009 by virumor

[Monte Carlo]

Have created a human rogue. Am trying to be as 'Neutral Evil' as possible.

 

So I'm fighting through the fiery ruins of the family schloss. My father lies, mortally wounded in the next room. My mother (I just know it!) will want to stay with him.

 

What am I thinking?

 

Well, she's wearing a suit of armour, a mace, shield and a longbow. That'll get me enough to buy a new backpack in Ostgar! So I strip it all off...

 

Ha ha ha ha.

 

On a less serious note, am thinking of mixing and matching DW and archery skills to make the character a bit more flexible. Any ideas - the critical hit archery route looks good.

 

Cheers

MC

[alanschu]

@Tigranes

 

It probably has a lot to do with you knowing how to play the game now. Combined with any mods (such as respec) that you may be using, you're going to be able to cater the characters specifically to optimize the synergy with your party, which the game certainly wasn't balanced for (not that it was balanced in nightmare, but the difficulty ultimately is only bonuses/maluses to enemies/you in combat, respectively).

[Monte Carlo]

^ Alan, so what you're saying is that an Icewind Dale syle game using this engine would be pretty impractical? Because I could create an awesome, game-breaking team of bespoke characters?

 

I can see this mod coming pretty soon, just like in BG2 you could 'multiplay' your own party as a single player. T'would be a shame, although I suppose you could just make the battles harder too.