Dragon age discussion

[Monte Carlo]

Too late!

[Volourn]

Just as you guys always post 'how wrong' I am. So, how are those 'useless' rogues making out? Are people still enjoying their 100%SR?

[newc0253]

"it didn't take much to talk my way past the guard, and i had virtually no problem convincing them to help me in principle."

 

Because, you are a Grey Warden with treaties. This is true everywhere. This is the templar at the MT lets you in even if you are a mage who was kicked out earlier or even if you are a dwarf noble who was WIPED FROM THE RECORDS in Orzammar you are allowed into the city when Logain's lacky is basically laughed at by the dwarf guard. It is very logical that the Dalish will talk to you. btw, It is very easy to lose access to the elf shopkeeper, and unlike most other palces, the elves will blast you if you do some of their quests the 'bad' way.

yes, the treaties blah blah. but there's not much of a sense of 'if it weren't for the treaties, we'd have skinned and gutted you before now'.

 

particularly given that the dalish are obvious analogues of, well, most indigenous peoples who have been frakked over by The Man, it'd be nice to have some sense of this. I was expecting getting the Dalish to honour their treaty obligations to be a major challenge. Instead it was, 'sure we'll help if you help us with wolfie'. Given how much attention the game gives to the idea of the Dalish, their execution was suprisingly weak.

 

by contrast, I thought being able to get into the dwarven city was much more plausible.

[lord of flies]

If I found Mass Effect and KotOR to be bland, uninventive, and boring in terms of gameplay, will I enjoy this?

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I highly doubt it.

[Morgoth]

Dragon Age had way too much grinding though.

 

I wonder what Bioware meant when they said "A game without combat at all would be interesting". Are they trying to pull a Heavy Rain? Could you imagine a Bioware game that isn't an RPG?

[Niten_Ryu]

The concept of the Dalish should have been great: the proud remainder of a once-great civilization living on the outskirts of human society, fiercely hostile to their former human overlords.

 

I think elfs in Dragon Age are ultimate losers. Actually they're so pitiful that it's great Bioware made two origins for 'em. Not only they lost their immortality, they've lost war after war. To Tevinter Empire, to humans in general, to overgrown dogs. They are still slaves in many nation states. Thus it makes sense that they're timid and not fierce guerilla fighters. Their cowardice is probably only reason why they haven't been hunted down to extinction.

[Volourn]

"If I found Mass Effect and KotOR to be bland, uninventive, and boring in terms of gameplay, will I enjoy this?"

 

DA is a BIO game. Take that as you will both good and bad.

[Gromnir]

If I found Mass Effect and KotOR to be bland, uninventive, and boring in terms of gameplay, will I enjoy this?

 

please give examples o' imaginative gameplay.

 

am reminded o' folks who prefer modern art, 'cause is imaginative and interesting. personally, Gromnir is more concerned 'bout execution than we is by New. chess sucks because is sooooo unimaginative.... should have to play naked, suspended 'bove a pool o' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tigranes]

DA is the best Bio game since the BG saga. DA is the game that NWN should have been but wasn't. DA is a game worth waiting 5+ years for.

 

that said, it wasn't perfect.

 

Got to agree. It's the first Bio game since BG2 that I've played more than twice, after all.

 

Then i was free to roam their camp. None of them seemed the slightest bit put out that here was a bunch of armoured humans wandering around. Probably the most crippling was the voice acting.

 

They do whine a lot about hwo you don't understand them, and I thought the storyteller responded well (Oh, I see, you'll just waltz in and understand us and solve all our problems), but yes, other than that it wasn't really there. I liked the dwarves the best of all in DA.

[Gromnir]

They do whine a lot about hwo you don't understand them, and I thought the storyteller responded well (Oh, I see, you'll just waltz in and understand us and solve all our problems), but yes, other than that it wasn't really there. I liked the dwarves the best of all in DA.

 

 

am embarrassed to say that the biowarians did a good job with sarel the storyteller.

 

...

 

Gromnir has met sarel a dozen times in the past. typically is a bright but unemployable relative o' ours whose thinly veiled sarcasm regarding our enculturation has managed to bring Gromnir to the edge of violence on more than one occasion. these sarel clones is quite willing to concede that the wasi'chu is not to blame for every misfortune that has befallen the People... but after listening to these guys complain for hours on end at the local tribal hall, feed store or corner bar, it is difficult to identify a problem that did not originate from the river o' wasi'chu venom that We has been drowning in for more than 150 years.

 

*groan*

 

bio did a pretty good job of making the dalish both sympathetic and annoying at the same time.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[newc0253]

i'll concede that Sarel was one of the few characters in the Dalish camp that stood out. So did the armour-making guy.

 

The No2 also stood out, but not in a good way. I couldn't tell whether she was badly-written or just badly-acted, but either way she grated.

[Tigranes]

No.2 was a robot, and it's disappointing - the dynamic would have been interesting with Zathrian.

[Gorth]

chess sucks because is sooooo unimaginative.... should have to play naked, suspended 'bove a pool o' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

I like Gromnirs chess better than Biowares chess... more dark and gritty and probably no romance the King/Queen option

 

The joinable as well as the non-joinable npcs were a mixed bunch. Some were good, some less so. Didn't find anyone particularly bad. A few voice actors did sound like they were just reciting text from the script they had been handed. I wonder if I am the only one that found Dagna so irresistibly cheerful that it was hard not to smile at her enthusiams for studying the theory of magic

[~Di]

Details on the spell nerfs from a Bio employee:

 

Force Field: duration lowered from 30 to 18 seconds (cooldown remains the same).

 

Crushing Prison: duration lowered from 20 to 9 (cooldown remains the same - total DOT damage remains the same)

 

Cone of Cold: freeze duration lowered from 10 to 8 seconds. Cooldown increased from 10 to 15 seconds. Damage remains the same.

 

Blizzard: The overall duration remains the same, but the freeze duration was lowered from 20 seconds to 4 seconds. Note that this duration can be re-applied every 2 seconds if the target is still inside the AOE. Cooldown remains the same.

 

OMG. They totally gutted Crushing Prison. 9 seconds? It's nearly useless now.

[~Di]

Rats, I can't get any mods to work here. I don't know how to install them. I downloaded the camp chest, companion respect, and no-helmet mods, but I can't figure out how the heck to install them. Or where to install them. I have my game on drive E, but there are documents for Dragon Age on drive C. I'm totally lost here. Can anyone offer any help?

 

What file type are they? If they are a .dazip file you'll need to use the Dragon Age Updater (daupdater) to install them. That can be found in the "bin_ship" folder of your main "Dragon Age" folder. Otherwise you can simply place most items in the override directory that can be found at either "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override" or "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\BioWare\DragonAge\packages\core\override". Hope this helps!

 

Thank you so much! They were indeed .dazip files, and all have been installed thanks to your instructions. Don't know if they work yet... baby steps, baby steps!

[Oner]

The concept of the Dalish should have been great: the proud remainder of a once-great civilization living on the outskirts of human society, fiercely hostile to their former human overlords.

 

I think elfs in Dragon Age are ultimate losers. Actually they're so pitiful that it's great Bioware made two origins for 'em. Not only they lost their immortality, they've lost war after war. To Tevinter Empire, to humans in general, to overgrown dogs. They are still slaves in many nation states. Thus it makes sense that they're timid and not fierce guerilla fighters. Their cowardice is probably only reason why they haven't been hunted down to extinction.

Some of them still change too fast to the Ferelden

[Dakar]

yes, the treaties blah blah. but there's not much of a sense of 'if it weren't for the treaties, we'd have skinned and gutted you before now'.

 

particularly given that the dalish are obvious analogues of, well, most indigenous peoples who have been frakked over by The Man, it'd be nice to have some sense of this. I was expecting getting the Dalish to honour their treaty obligations to be a major challenge. Instead it was, 'sure we'll help if you help us with wolfie'. Given how much attention the game gives to the idea of the Dalish, their execution was suprisingly weak.

 

by contrast, I thought being able to get into the dwarven city was much more plausible.

 

Weakest part of the Dalish stuff to me was how they were treated. Early in the game, at least in the city elf origin, they are treated as borderline mythical creatures. No one is completely sure where they are, if they exist, blah blah blah. By the end of the game its like the Dalish are the local mailman. Easily the weakest of the ally parts of the game. And none of the

City Elves even react to the fact you brought the freaking Dalish back with you.

 

[Tigranes]

Force Field: duration lowered from 30 to 18 seconds (cooldown remains the same).

 

Crushing Prison: duration lowered from 20 to 9 (cooldown remains the same - total DOT damage remains the same)

 

Cone of Cold: freeze duration lowered from 10 to 8 seconds. Cooldown increased from 10 to 15 seconds. Damage remains the same.

 

Blizzard: The overall duration remains the same, but the freeze duration was lowered from 20 seconds to 4 seconds. Note that this duration can be re-applied every 2 seconds if the target is still inside the AOE. Cooldown remains the same.

 

These are pretty drastic, and I think overdo it a little. CoC and Blizzard nerfs are fine, but CP and FF should have only been cut by 6-7 seconds, not 11-12. Now I wonder if they will turn out to be less useful than some other spells... well, I won't know, since I'm finishing this playthrough without the patch, and next run will be solo rogue.

[~Di]

I hope I never have to download this patch. The FF and CP nerfs are ridiculous. There's no reason to use these magic lines at all now. And as for using

Spirit form

in the fade, forget about it. CP and Winter's Grasp are its only form of protection. Now it's got nothing.

[Volourn]

"These are pretty drastic, and I think overdo it a little."

 

Blame the overreaction of how people vocally claime dthey were 'overpowered' and 'broke' the game. *shrug* This is silly BIO listening to foolish fans who don't know what they want. The loudest may win; but they often are very wrong.

 

It's why these spells are 'broken'; but somehow 100SR% is not even though it actually is.

[Deraldin]

Force Field: duration lowered from 30 to 18 seconds (cooldown remains the same).

 

Crushing Prison: duration lowered from 20 to 9 (cooldown remains the same - total DOT damage remains the same)

 

Cone of Cold: freeze duration lowered from 10 to 8 seconds. Cooldown increased from 10 to 15 seconds. Damage remains the same.

 

Blizzard: The overall duration remains the same, but the freeze duration was lowered from 20 seconds to 4 seconds. Note that this duration can be re-applied every 2 seconds if the target is still inside the AOE. Cooldown remains the same.

 

These are pretty drastic, and I think overdo it a little. CoC and Blizzard nerfs are fine, but CP and FF should have only been cut by 6-7 seconds, not 11-12. Now I wonder if they will turn out to be less useful than some other spells... well, I won't know, since I'm finishing this playthrough without the patch, and next run will be solo rogue.

 

Like you said, Cone of Cold is fine. Blizzard might be a little much. I probably wouldn't drop it below the 8 seconds that Cone of Cold gets. Force Field still lasts long enough to be useful, but the explanation they gave for the nerf is ridiculous. Crushing Prison has lost most of its usefulness as a crowd control spell with such a short duration.

[Tigranes]

Blame the overreaction of how people vocally claime dthey were 'overpowered' and 'broke' the game. *shrug* This is silly BIO listening to foolish fans who don't know what they want. The loudest may win; but they often are very wrong.

 

It's why these spells are 'broken'; but somehow 100SR% is not even though it actually is.

 

Nope, its just slightly overzealous balancing. But thanks.

 

This makes me think of something interesting (and obvious to some) - mages are the only class capable of long-term enemy debilitation. Rogue, Dog, Shale and Warrior skills can paralyse or otherwise disable an enemy for 5 seconds, max. In fact, in Hard and Nightmare difficulties, that should be the primary function of a mage, to take enemies out of the fight. Now that arguably the most effective spells in the game at doing so have been significantly toned down, we might see more attrition in DA battles in higher difficulties - i.e. it's gonna be harder to freeze enemies and make sure you take no or minimal damage, you're going to be able to hex them and put them to sleep and such but also account for the fact that most fights will leave you bloody(ier).

[Gromnir]

having played with the patch, am not too bothered by the changes so far. as noted earlier, crushing prison is not nearly as useful on hard difficulty as some would suggest... it can takes out a single archer and Maybe disable a hurlock or gorlock emissary... maybe. am sorry for folks playing on normal, but Gromnir hasn't been impacted overmuch. force field typically lasts too long for Gromnir anyways... or too short. against everything but Super Bosses we get bored waiting for force field to expire. against the mega dragons it only lasted a couple of seconds. am betting those dragon battles is gonna require some new tactics. cone of cold is indeed shorter... which is a good thing. it were the single best spell in the game for us... which is just plain wrong. is no way that a third tier spell should be bestest. 'course, those revenant battles is gonna become Much tougher now. honestly, Gromnir didn't notice much difference with blizzard, but Gromnir usual combines with wynne earthquake and shale rock barrage, so critters is being disabled regardless of being frozen. still, those scattershot archers is gonna become even more annoying now that blizzard is less efficacious.

 

other than the fact that the durations for some o' these spells were already crazy short with some boss creatures, we gots no real complaint. cone of cold were indeed our ace-in-the-hole with the Godzilla dragons and am kinda looking forward to the new challenge a nerfed coc dragon age presents when confronting the titular enemies.

 

as for the possibility of 100% spell resist... so what? is only 1 or 2 significant battles in which spell resist of such magnitude would be worth the costs. dragons and revenants beat you to a pulp with physical attacks. forgo better armour and runes to get spell resist against a dragon or revenant? not a chance. come to think of it, is actual only 1 genuine battle in which we would ever consider jag's 100% spell resist approach... and spending the ridiculous amount of gold it would take to achieve is just not worth it.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 9, 2009 by Gromnir

[Volourn]

Doesn't matter. 100% resistance is broken. Plain,a nd simple. Why are you defending such obvious cheese? 75% resistance should be the absolute MAX for any time of resistance. Otherwsie, it gets way too cheesy. Period.

 

With 100% SR%, mage opponents become an absolute joke which makes a lot fo encounters pathetically easier.