Dragon Age is out

[Vympel]

Reminds me of Baldur's Gate- if you zoom the camera out all the way (who uses a trackball? what?) its basically the same perspective Neverwinter Nights has nothing on this, unless you mean the second one, which I only played for an hour before forgetting about it.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Getting a random encounter on the world map and losing your heavily-armed party to a bunch of wolves (which are the same level as your party for some reason) and then losing half an hour of progress when you learn that the game does not actually save in any way shape or form when you transition around the world map is pretty awesome.

I really like this game, but this is starting to get ridiculous.

[Vympel]

So far, it's not really that hard for me, but I've only gotten so far as finishing Ostragar - the finishing moves on that huge Darkspawn was wicked.

What's your party? I found I had great difficulty in combat, until I stopped rushing in and letting everyone in my party fight just one guy - ganging up on one enemy at a time works way better, and my guys have stopped getting knocked out.

It's a lot like BG in that regard, i.e. avoiding getting drawn in and surrounded, trying to only fight one monster at a time etc.

Speaking of which, the 'injury' mechanic is a great idea - no longer is getting beaten in combat just an inconvenience - if you have no injury kit (as I did in the wilds), you're walking around with a penalty until you can get fixed up, as oppposed to just potion quaffing making you right as rain.

My completionsit bent was ruined in the Kocari wilds though - for some reason the Missionary quest wouldn't complete even though I found the camp just fine, and I didn't find the Chasind cache or whatever because it wasn't anywhere on the map even though I found all the markers. I found the damn last will and testament and his lockbox, though. So when I ran into Morrigan and the game progressed the quests were marked as incomplete ("you had more pressing matters to attend to", "events took you out of the wilds").

[Xon]

Dragon Age Origins DLC updater is a poorly programmed POS.

It will crash and fail to install anything if your User Profile has it's "My Documents" folder redirected to a network path.

It will also fail wierdly if the game hasn't been run in a profile before.

Thankfully you can just create a profile without the redirection, install the content and copy it over. And if it bitches about authorization of the DLC, it is a single freaking digit in an XML file.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

What's your party? I found I had great difficulty in combat, until I stopped rushing in and letting everyone in my party fight just one guy - ganging up on one enemy at a time works way better, and my guys have stopped getting knocked out.

Right now, I have my main as a 1h/shield warrior, Alistair as same, Morrigan upgraded with a heal spell set to high-priority use if anyone is under 75% health, and the priestess/bard chick with a bow. They're all set to attack my current target.

[Molyneux]

Reminds me of Baldur's Gate- if you zoom the camera out all the way (who uses a trackball? what?) its basically the same perspective Neverwinter Nights has nothing on this, unless you mean the second one, which I only played for an hour before forgetting about it.

Well, I've played a very little bit of Baldur's Gate - but the graphics are too awful for me to play it for more than a few minutes. Neverwinter was where I started with Bioware, and while I've played some KotOR and Mass Effect since, that's still the filter through which I see their RPGs.

[Vympel]

That's tragic. Neverwinter sucks balls compared to Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate's graphics are well - way better than Neverwinter. Neverwinter's graphics are the Awkward-We-Haven't-Gotten-It-Quite-Right-3D-Polygon school.

Right now, I have my main as a 1h/shield warrior, Alistair as same, Morrigan upgraded with a heal spell set to high-priority use if anyone is under 75% health, and the priestess/bard chick with a bow. They're all set to attack my current target.

Well you know more than me at this stage, I still haven't had time to play past when Morrigan joined my party. I'm thinking about dumping Alistair and getting some sort of rogue character, though. Two fighters seems a bit much.

[Stofsk]

Well you know more than me at this stage, I still haven't had time to play past when Morrigan joined my party. I'm thinking about dumping Alistair and getting some sort of rogue character, though. Two fighters seems a bit much.

You could always play as a mage.

[Vympel]

Pfft. You know how much I fucking hate mages. Lame ass limpdick "bippity boppity boo! my magic wand cast a spell on you! let's play qidditch! oooh i tripped over my robes!"

Pfah.

[Xess]

Don't have the game but want to get it. Do you folks recommend the PC or console version?

[Vendetta]

If your PC can cope, get that version.

[Xon]

Well you know more than me at this stage, I still haven't had time to play past when Morrigan joined my party. I'm thinking about dumping Alistair and getting some sort of rogue character, though. Two fighters seems a bit much.

You get a rogue character soon after Morrigan joins you. And two fighters sounds like a good idea. However, 3 mages all firing vollies of lightning does tend to kill shit really fast.

[Stofsk]

Pfft. You know how much I fucking hate mages. Lame ass limpdick "bippity boppity boo! my magic wand cast a spell on you! let's play qidditch! oooh i tripped over my robes!"

Pfah.

Do you hate mages, or do you hate Harry Potter, because the two aren't necessarily equivalent.

Anyway, you could also try playing a Rogue. Mix things up a little.

Or... there's nothing wrong with having more than one beatstick in the party.

[Xon]

God damn is the party npc ai fucking stupid. And the defaults are so mind-numbingly bad. Nothing like my healer running towards whatever fucking character I have selected for some badshit insane reason instead of healing or actually attacking anything.

Worse, it is all or nothing with respect to the unit AI. The hold position actually turns the uni AI off. They will not cast spells or pick up new targets in range. But if you have it set to "move freely", the party will always try to run to whatever character you have selected if they aren't doing anything.

About 90% of my party wipes have been because the party characters keep doing stupid shit even after I queue orders. The other 10% have been hitting grossly imbalanced mobs and taking a few tries to figure out the magic formula.

Also, what dipshit thought casting fireball in response to 3 enemies being close together was a sane default for a caster. Especially since you can't put modifiers on the AI commands to not do something if a friendly is too close.

[Ghost Rider]

That would be my major problem of this game. Sure it's a D&D problem but all the same, I despise that I have an AoE attack that basically needs set up from far away and oh wait....my dumbass wench character dumps it in the middle and look it killed two of us and three of the enemy.

I hated it in every game because the game's intelligence is so fucking bad they go "Enemy, use spell!", without the programmer never giving a second's thought of having you tell said character "Don't use things that can hurt us.".

I am enjoying the game, but having to deal with this very old and stupid ability is just crap. Especially given how much the game does enjoy the wave tactic of enemies.

[Xon]

Probably the most anoying thing is my healer has this awesome group heal spell. And there is no way of saying if more than 2 party memebers are on low health cast the group heal, So I end up microing everything anyway.

The AI tactics stuff is a neat idea, but the implementation is utterly worthless, and really detracts from the game.

[Stofsk]

Can you turn off 'friendly fire' for AoE spells?

[Xon]

Only if you set the difficulty to easy.

Also, there is no respec so auto-level is a really bad idea.

[Ghost Rider]

Probably the most anoying thing is my healer has this awesome group heal spell. Which isn't used by default, so I end up microing everything anyway.

The AI tactics stuff is a neat idea, but the implementation is utterly worthless, and really detracts from the game.

Reminds me of a retarded FFXII, which had a similar ideas. A bit more because you could create paths that were more obnoxious, but the level of stupidity this game has on some tactics does grate. I mean with BG/KoTOR and the rest is I could be strong enough to handle Tank/DPS while have micromanage the healer. Here? FIREBALL!!! SHIT....it killed the healer. Reload. Or a few number of idiotic choices. Strangely I am wondering if I shouldn't reroll as either an all killing Rogue or just be the Heal/Mage because it's needed more then warrior.

[Xon]

Thankfully my characters can tank a fireball now, and I've actually taken to dropping one onto my tank if he is mobbed by at least +5 targets. But that is only because group heal can heal my tank from 1/5 health to 2/3s hp and practically heals my casters to max.

But if that healer goes down or my hero (who does most of the dps), I'm screwed. the rogue tag-along I have is actually worthless as the locked chests generally don't have anything, Sure there is a Treasury which is helpful, but I used auto-level at the start a few times and it didn't pick useful skills so the lock-pick is too low a level to be usefull now. Worse she is speced for bows, which are completely fucking worthless. And has a really bad habit of switching to her melee weapons and running into a large mob and promptly dieing. Worse it is quite random on when she will switch to melee or be content to poke away using the crappy bow.

[Ghost Rider]

Thankfully my characters can tank a fireball now, and I've actually taken to dropping one onto my tank if he is mobbed by at least +5 targets. But that is only because group heal can heal my tank from 1/5 health to 2/3s hp and practically heals my casters to max.

LOL, yeah there's the good solution. Really, it's a tad silly to need to do it, but it works. All in all the game is for me new and pretty good, but things like this are making me just go "One go, and fuck if I touch it again.".

[Xon]

I'm trying to unlock spiritial caster on my main hero who is a mage. I really love that group heal and need more.

It is the only reason I've been able to power through so fast even completing as much as I can. Heal spell spam is a heck of a lot better than potions, especially since healing someone doesn't attract agro.

[Xon]

Does mana/stamina ever start to regenerate at a non-shittastic rate? How 'about accumulate in a pool, rather than a puddle? I find that while combat isn't brutally hard, it's worse than Diablo for potion-chugging, and Diablo was already fucking annoying on that score.

There is a spell called mass rejuvenation which causes mana/stamina in combat, and it is really really helpful. It actually will cause the caster to regen significantly more mana than it takes to cast.

[Vympel]

The reason I say the game reminds me of Baldur's Gate is because I play it like Baldur's Gate - i.e. pause the action, cue orders, unpause, rinse, repeat. This is a game where combat is micronmanaged, and playing in real time and relying on the party AI is an exercise in "get your ass kicked". It doesn't really bother me.

Do you hate mages, or do you hate Harry Potter, because the two aren't necessarily equivalent.

It's all the same shit to me. Mages are lame. They mince around in bathrobes and wave their hands about whilst stroking their pretentious little beards ... stuff em.

Only Elder Scrolls has ever said "why shouldn't a mage have heavy plate armor and lob fireballs whilst swinging a sword, if he wants to?".

[White Haven]

'Arcane Warrior' mage specialization. Now quitcher bitching.

As for getting casters to stay at range, toss on a Target of Controller Character -- Attack' command on them and they'll happily sit at range and plaster things.