Dragon Age is out

[White Haven]

I seem to recall Morrigan skullfucking a dragon with some sort of continuous-beam lightning in one of the trailers, and in other she blew a couple darkspawn into the camera with some sort of kinetic-lightning spell. They've got the IDEA of deadly magic, just...don't really use it.

[Ghost Rider]

I seem to recall Morrigan skullfucking a dragon with some sort of continuous-beam lightning in one of the trailers, and in other she blew a couple darkspawn into the camera with some sort of kinetic-lightning spell. They've got the IDEA of deadly magic, just...don't really use it.

GAH! I mean one can think of all the ways of a spectacular death you can have with magic. The prison/TK spells doing a crunch and smush death. Lightning boiling an enemy, Ice shatterings, Fire blazes. But that's being mundane...but it's something more versus watching my rogue or warrior climbing up the critter to slam my blade into his head. And it makes it so you get visceral as whatever your choice.

Though one complaint of the death animations....they should not be a part of real time combat. I accidently did one near the end on some ogre...and here I am slo-mo killing the fucker as the other ten darkspawn are raping Wynne because my other two guys are stunned. Could I go over and help? No, because I am stuck trying to be Conan in leather like a fucking moron.

[Stofsk]

Spoilers dude

You don't need to kill Flemeth. Sorry.

And Alistair landing the finishing blow isn't a plot point, it just depends on how combat goes.

He's probably refering to Flemeth . I mean yeah...we all know, but that's rather significant compared to "You're going to kill the big bad Archdemon."

Yeah, exactly. I only now got that side quest unlocked after giving Morrigan the book and giving her time to read it. But thanks to Vympel, it didn't come as a surprise (the details were still interesting).

I finally caved in to pressure and turned the difficulty down to easy. I was in the Brecilian forest and the fucking Revenant and/or Hermit had killed me and my party like two million times. Fuck that shit, I play a game to have fun not tear my hair out in frustration.

[wautd]

Ok, when I say easy as fuck, that does not include the part where you can disturb a tombstone in some ruin. I couldn't complete that yet even on easy.

But now I did. That full set juggernaut armor was well worth the trouble

[Ghost Rider]

Juggernaut is really good, but I've noticed the upgraded Warden's set is a shine better in some ways.

If wondering the upgrading is some bizarre bug that certain things can be applied upon. If said item, like the warden's set, is not of the highest material of say Silverite, you can sell the item to a vendor. Then come back and buy it at it being whatever the level you buy at. I thought it was funny as I cleared inventory and it worked on the Warden Crossbow.

Overall, I will admit the armors for a warrior at least don't have to be mixed and matched. A Mage....is weird. Depending on said taking of Arcane Warrior will shift items into different directions as certain boots and what not offer huge boosts. A rogue is a hideous mix and match...and buying a chest piece between Dragon Scale armor making. So what really good items have you found?

For me a few. There is a chest piece Wade's sells between the second set and final set, but before he cancels the store sales entirely, that is by far the most absurd of the Rogue benefits called the Felon's coat. It's I remember being 90 Gold

Another piece though if you really want to laugh at the final boss, is to get the helm called Corruption. Overall a okay helm...but it's +75 resist to spirit along with the likely gear you have? You pretty much laugh at breath and attacks from the fucker.

One shield that is from the end of a side quest of Unbound(and also shown to be a 25% drop) is the Fade Wall. Literally THE tank shield with having more stamina, stamina regen, as well healing benefit.

The Chasind Maul is the only thing better then Starfang two hander...because it has armor pen through the nose. Problem is it's bought by the dwarf in Denerim AFTER the Landsmeet, which means you can miss it entirely...very easily. I believe 130 Gold.

Also I've leaving out Spellward, Andruil's Blessing, The Mage Lord's staff and a few others because they are easy to spot from vendors since they are always there...and always a huge sum of cash.

[White Haven]

Almost forgot one more graphical issue, but this one's design rather than engine. For fuck's sake, you'll take off helmets in conversations so people look better, why can't you take off spell effects too? An Arcane Warrior maxxed out with Combat Magic (plus Fade Whatever addon), Arcane Shield, and Shimmering Shield is ugly beyond belief to a close-range camera, really ruined a lot of the scenes.

[Ghost Rider]

Almost forgot one more graphical issue, but this one's design rather than engine. For fuck's sake, you'll take off helmets in conversations so people look better, why can't you take off spell effects too? An Arcane Warrior maxxed out with Combat Magic (plus Fade Whatever addon), Arcane Shield, and Shimmering Shield is ugly beyond belief to a close-range camera, really ruined a lot of the scenes.

LOL...yes, I second that thought. Along with the stupid amount of blood when you have gore on, this disrupts the visuals and feel of any conversations you have if you're not in camp with everything off. It's so bad to have four different shimmers on you when you're trying to talk with people.

[Coaan]

The blood splatter issue can be turned off at least...you can remove persistant gore so you're clean after every battle. Spelleffect wise, you'll need a mod from the DA Nexus to turn down/remove the effects.

It's called the annoyance remover and one of the things it does is remove that freaking annoying sound created by the Rally Aura under the champion tree. It also removes the visual effects for many abilities and spells, making conversations a bit more bearable.

[wautd]

One shield that is from the end of a side quest of Unbound(and also shown to be a 25% drop) is the Fade Wall. Literally THE tank shield with having more stamina, stamina regen, as well healing benefit.

*Takes notes*

My character is or 1 or 2 skillpoints away from having all the sword + shield skills.

I'm currently sitting on the fence weather or not to buy the knight commanders armor for Alistair (at second-hand vender outside dwarven kingdom). Seems like an awesome piece of equipement for the price and if it wasn't for a spoiler I accidentally read, I'd bought it already Spoiler

appearantly, you can have Logaine in your party as well. But doing so will make Alistair to leave. Don't know Logaine's stats, but on the other hand, I messed Alistair's skills a bit up at the beginning of the game, and Sten seems too much of a disloyal dick to replce him with

[charlemagne]

Sten isn't a good tank anyways unless you get a mod to let you respecc (or one that doesn't auto-level companions as they enter your party). I find the latter - a mod that lets me level new companions by myself - really helpful, since I could get rid of Zevran's stealth skills for example and get something useful like lockpicking instead, I don't use stealth anyways.

[Ghost Rider]

Sten isn't a good tank anyways unless you get a mod to let you respecc (or one that doesn't auto-level companions as they enter your party). I find the latter - a mod that lets me level new companions by myself - really helpful, since I could get rid of Zevran's stealth skills for example and get something useful like lockpicking instead, I don't use stealth anyways.

Or hell...any of them. But Zevran and Oghren are usually the last you'll get and they had the weirdest fucking set up of skills and stat distribution.

And sadly, stealth is so fucking useless in this game. All it allows is using items(pointless) in stealth, and getting a free crit in combat(aside from the 85% I can get through talents and gear and not waste time walking slowly?).
Spoiler

Logain isn't bad as a tank, but he does lack the customization. Essentially he's a pinch hitter tank, especially if you've truly been leveling Alistair and using the dope. Sten lacks the ability to have more then one customization...which hurts a lot. At least your Hound and Shale have overpowering abilities to compensate.

[dragon]

Shale is a much better tank.

[GuppyShark]

Has anyone else seen the Leilana elf song cutscene. It's a nice enough piece (if fantasy elf music is your thing) but they didn't lip sync it very well and most of her animations are normal speech ones, completely ruining the effect.

[Stofsk]

Yeah I've seen it. I can't say I noticed any lip sync issues though (it's a video game, I accept they can't get everything simulated perfectly).

[Vympel]

Yeah, exactly. I only now got that side quest unlocked after giving Morrigan the book and giving her time to read it. But thanks to Vympel, it didn't come as a surprise (the details were still interesting).

Bah. As if they'd put Captain Janeway in the game without giving you the option to kill her

(I learnt about this from previews of the game anyway)

I finally caved in to pressure and turned the difficulty down to easy. I was in the Brecilian forest and the fucking Revenant and/or Hermit had killed me and my party like two million times. Fuck that shit, I play a game to have fun not tear my hair out in frustration.

Preach it. Easy difficulty feels 'right' to me. You can still wipe if you're not paying attention, and that's just right to me. Normal is an exercise in masochism.

[Stark]

Hey, something about the game finally sounds appealing! What is it about the combat balance that makes it hard? Does the AI cheat, are the fights finely balanced, are levels/equipment/build important?

[Vympel]

Hey, something about the game finally sounds appealing! What is it about the combat balance that makes it hard? Does the AI cheat, are the fights finely balanced, are levels/equipment/build important?

The AI hits For Massive Damage on Normal. Levels definitely matter, though the game does have some leveled content. Friendly fire from your own spells is also active on Normal, which, given the nature of combat in the game, makes all persistent-AoE spells positively useless unless you contrive the fight just right.

[Stark]

Someone mentioned a glyph earlier that helped against FF, but I guess it's still dooming you if the AI already does high damage. Still, a Bioware game with high difficulty is pretty out of the box; how long does it take to 'get hard' (I notice some found the early stuff quite hard)?

[Vympel]

Someone mentioned a glyph earlier that helped against FF, but I guess it's still dooming you if the AI already does high damage. Still, a Bioware game with high difficulty is pretty out of the box; how long does it take to 'get hard' (I notice some found the early stuff quite hard)?

In my experience it got genuinely difficult (as in *holy shit my life just dropped to virtually nothing and the fight just started wtf?*) in Lothering, but it's inconsistent - difficulty spikes big time in the game. Some of that could be just down to party balance - for some situations 2x mages 2x tanks (no rogue) are appropriate, for others not so much.

EDIT: mind the fights with pathetic mobs in Lothering wouldn't have been so difficult if you actually had a mage with you at that point (you don't get Wynne until after) who can cast heal.

[GuppyShark]

I am playing it on Normal and feel it is a fairly appropriate level of difficulty. This is my first party-based RPG but I have a lot of raiding experience. I had some nasty wipes in the Circle tower from a hostile caster that spammed fireballs and chain lightning at me until I came up with a way to deal with him, other than that most fights have been fun. Some stretches got pretty tedious (oh look it’s the same five mobs again).

A sword-and-board tank can comfortably handle pretty much anything if he has +% healing equipment. I have not had any major threat problems and I have not even bought Taunt on him yet. I just set my DPS characters to only attack his target, not rocket surgery.

Obviously if you pull with a fireball you'd better kill everything before your Glyph of Repulsion expires.

[White Haven]

Dual-mage and you can perma Glyph of Repulsion, which basically translates to Protection From Low-Level Mooks.

[Stofsk]

Yeah, exactly. I only now got that side quest unlocked after giving Morrigan the book and giving her time to read it. But thanks to Vympel, it didn't come as a surprise (the details were still interesting).

Bah. As if they'd put Captain Janeway in the game without giving you the option to kill her

(I learnt about this from previews of the game anyway)

Well, to be honest... I found it odd that they'd Spoiler

have Flemeth be the one who saves you at the end of Ostagar but you kill her later. Although, you have an option of just letting her go and I guess lying to Morrigan that you've killed her. But where's the fun in that? Unless you hate Morrigan I guess.

I'm also a bit pissy with regards to spoilers because I 'accidentally' (through my own carelessness) partially spoiled myself on the ending, as far as it relates to a particular party member.

I finally caved in to pressure and turned the difficulty down to easy. I was in the Brecilian forest and the fucking Revenant and/or Hermit had killed me and my party like two million times. Fuck that shit, I play a game to have fun not tear my hair out in frustration.

Preach it. Easy difficulty feels 'right' to me. You can still wipe if you're not paying attention, and that's just right to me. Normal is an exercise in masochism.

I went back to Normal after taking a break from my Dalish Rogue and starting a new game with a mage who's gonna use the Arcane Warrior specialisation. Like you said to Stark, the difficulty is really skewed in this game. Sometimes you can die even on Easy, sometimes Normal feels easy. I turned it down when I was facing those two particularly difficult fights which had me reload about a dozen times.

(I'm pissed off I missed a few things as my Dalish Rogue at the start. Getting an extra backpack in Ostagar for peanuts compared to later, the sidequests in the Korcari wilds as well... the completionist in me wants to reload to an earlier save)

[Ghost Rider]

So far did a run on Casual, Normal and now Hard...the difference is really a bit to do with friendly fire.

For Hard and from what I've seen Nightmare, is you have to have a decent amount of healing it helps, but your crowd control better be second to none. You want the mages, archers, and golem stun things constantly and rip things down quick. Mages are still kings with a whole host of ways to knockdown/stun but rogue melee/archers see new light as they can either single lockdown or group stun. Two hander warriors aren't horrible but they can get gibbed if their stuns aren't constant.

The game has some weird ramps in difficulty as the levels go up and the enemies have a more varied attack. Logain's chick...will be interesting. On Casual that battle was a joke. On Normal I still gutted through it easily enough. On Hard...I kinda wonder.

[Vympel]

(I'm pissed off I missed a few things as my Dalish Rogue at the start. Getting an extra backpack in Ostagar for peanuts compared to later, the sidequests in the Korcari wilds as well... the completionist in me wants to reload to an earlier save)

I missed the same fucking things, its driving me crazy all the stuff I've had to destroy due to lack of space- you can actually pick up two backpacks, not one, from the same shop. Before you go to the wilds, and after you come back ...

I'm replaying as a sword and board human male noble before i do any of the other origins (I got the Dual Wield master achievement just last night). This playthrough is 'warm up'.

I also wasted a shitload of paintings that should've been gifted to Sten. I didn't think that fucker liked anything.

[Ghost Rider]

Oh yeah...gifts. The big ones I've found for each and this is barring the actual plot level items.

Alistair: Statues, Runestones
Morrigan: Jewelry
Leliana: Religious materials
Oghren: Liquor, but not wine.
Shale: Gemstones
Wynne: Books(look for items with REALLY long titles)
Zevran: Gold or Silver Bars
Sten: Paintings Spoiler

Logain: Maps