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[Tobor]

I finally got my first finishing move, and it was against the

Spoiler

Broodmother

! It was seriously the most epic fight I've ever had. My entire team went down and with just a hair of health left on my Rogue I launched into the air, landed right behind it's head, and slit it's throat. Man, I love this game!

 

[Danne-Danger]

The spell tree that starts with Mind blast is probably the best in the game. Force Field is especially useful and has saved my ass many a times. I use it on "bosses" so that I can take them out of the fight for a bit to clear out their henchmen. Or if my tank is being swarmed, I use it on him (stupid ai continues to attack), then I just blast AOE spells. Ever since I started using 3 mages and a tank the game has become much MUCH easier. Maybe too easy. This is on hard.

I really wish someone would create a mod that nerfs mages and allows for 6 party members. That would be awesome.

Yeah. I'm using Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan to go along with my Primal/Healer. Pretty much just petrify and freeze everyone and then proceed to Stone Fist (!) them to death. In between Morrigan puts everyone to sleep and throws a Waking Nightmare to make them all fight each other. If it’s a long battle I have Rejuvenation (and Mass Rejuvenation) on two of the mages and Spellboom on my main, along with 99 lesser lyrium potions (ingredients are waaaay to cheap).

It really is all about the mages so far. I'm thinking of going up to nightmare so I'll at least start getting hurt by enemies.

 

[iam220]

Yeah. I'm using Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan to go along with my Primal/Healer.

:lol I'm also using that EXACT party.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Provided you have the dexterity hotfix, once you get Liliana enough levels to get Master Archer, I would suggest two mages+Liliana+tank. The loss of the third mage's utility is more than made up by the colossal and sustained long-range damage output that rapid fire+master archer brings to the table.

Until then I would say that 3 mage+tank is an optimal party. Lockpicking is pointless since the game's loot is so bad at the start anyway, so you don't really need a rogue unless you are in an area with traps (and in a second playthrough you'll know where they are and where you will have to tow along a rogue anyway. In that case, do 3 mages+rogue .

 

[JoeBoy101]

Finished the game last night. I thought the entire game was incredible, but the latter section including and after the Landsmeet was really well done. Now to get all spoilerific:

Warning! End of game spoilers!! Highlight at own risk!

Spoiler

I though the implementation of the armies was a little tacked on. Its was good in theory as it presented a tangible benefit for having run down allies of dwarves, elves, and mages. It seemed to be a little sloppy in implementation though, but overall I liked. I thought a great touch was that because I convinced the Legion of the Dead to come topside for the fight, some of the dwarf soldiers were Legion Avengers. Nice touch.

A great touch was also the switch from the main party to the defense party trying to keep the Darkspawn reinforcements from getting through the gate.

I did not choose Morrigan's loophole because I found the whole idea nauseating. Not the sex with her, but the use the child as a sink for the Archdemon's soul. And more, to the point, she wanted to be able to run off with it later, to raise as her own, alone. Thus becoming Flemeth all over again. I told her to FOAD.

The two differences between you slaying the demon and letting Alistar do it are nicely done. You get a nice, appropriate memorial scene, but being able to address the court and talk with all your companions at the end was very statisfying. I liked it more than if there had been a movie for each.

Any other thoughts from others? I thought it closed nicely, but noticed that the game suggested further DLC would be prologues.

 

[Warnen]

Finished the game last night. I thought the entire game was incredible, but the latter section including and after the Landsmeet was really well done. Now to get all spoilerific:

Warning! End of game spoilers!! Highlight at own risk!

Spoiler

I though the implementation of the armies was a little tacked on. Its was good in theory as it presented a tangible benefit for having run down allies of dwarves, elves, and mages. It seemed to be a little sloppy in implementation though, but overall I liked. I thought a great touch was that because I convinced the Legion of the Dead to come topside for the fight, some of the dwarf soldiers were Legion Avengers. Nice touch.

A great touch was also the switch from the main party to the defense party trying to keep the Darkspawn reinforcements from getting through the gate.

I did not choose Morrigan's loophole because I found the whole idea nauseating. Not the sex with her, but the use the child as a sink for the Archdemon's soul. And more, to the point, she wanted to be able to run off with it later, to raise as her own, alone. Thus becoming Flemeth all over again. I told her to FOAD.

The two differences between you slaying the demon and letting Alistar do it are nicely done. You get a nice, appropriate memorial scene, but being able to address the court and talk with all your companions at the end was very statisfying. I liked it more than if there had been a movie for each.

Any other thoughts from others? I thought it closed nicely, but noticed that the game suggested further DLC would be prologues.

Spoiler

If you talk to her she explains its not a demon you are saving its an "old god" that has been tainted. By doing this the child saves the old god from the taint. I take it as saving a god.

 

[CAW]

Finished the game last night. I thought the entire game was incredible, but the latter section including and after the Landsmeet was really well done. Now to get all spoilerific:

Warning! End of game spoilers!! Highlight at own risk!

Spoiler

I though the implementation of the armies was a little tacked on. Its was good in theory as it presented a tangible benefit for having run down allies of dwarves, elves, and mages. It seemed to be a little sloppy in implementation though, but overall I liked. I thought a great touch was that because I convinced the Legion of the Dead to come topside for the fight, some of the dwarf soldiers were Legion Avengers. Nice touch.

A great touch was also the switch from the main party to the defense party trying to keep the Darkspawn reinforcements from getting through the gate.

I did not choose Morrigan's loophole because I found the whole idea nauseating. Not the sex with her, but the use the child as a sink for the Archdemon's soul. And more, to the point, she wanted to be able to run off with it later, to raise as her own, alone. Thus becoming Flemeth all over again. I told her to FOAD.

The two differences between you slaying the demon and letting Alistar do it are nicely done. You get a nice, appropriate memorial scene, but being able to address the court and talk with all your companions at the end was very statisfying. I liked it more than if there had been a movie for each.

Any other thoughts from others? I thought it closed nicely, but noticed that the game suggested further DLC would be prologues.

Spoiler

I was hoping to kill her at that point and I selected "I should have killed you long ago" (or something along those lines). Sadly she just left and I was unable to fight her. I didn't use her much in the game, she kept pissing me off with her comments when I tried to help people. Her and Sten.

 

[JoeBoy101]

Spoiler

I was hoping to kill her at that point and I selected "I should have killed you long ago" (or something along those lines). Sadly she just left and I was unable to fight her. I didn't use her much in the game, she kept pissing me off with her comments when I tried to help people. Her and Sten.

Spoiler

Sten actually led my defense forces preventing reinforcements from arriving. He's a tough nut to crack, but once you get his side mission (which is super easy), he becomes alot more understanding.

 

[CAW]

Spoiler

Sten actually led my defense forces preventing reinforcements from arriving. He's a tough nut to crack, but once you get his side mission (which is super easy), he becomes alot more understanding.

Hmm, nice. I might give him another go then. I also need to do

Spoiler

Shale's side quest in the deeps and a few other characters. I didn't really focus much on that (companion quests) my first play through, I definitely will now though. I also didn't fight Flemeth which I hear was wise. :lol

 

[markatisu]

How hard is the Warden' Keep? Shall I attempt the quest around lvl 12 or should I wait a bit? Will I be able to use rewards anyway?

I beat Wardens Keep at Level 10, and I was able to use the Armor you gain from it immediately

 

[MirageDwarf]

Has anyone here played around with the toolset?

I can't wait to dig into it.

I can't start it. It didn't copy database in there. You've to manually restore it from backup copy from another folder. That part is not working for me. Also there are few bugs. Read it on official forum that it may rename one of your directory which breaks in-game stuff. Although renaming it back fixes the problem.

I just blind bought this for $40 from Amazon; I only have one question: Does the codex read to you?

No. Would have been nice additional feature like in ME.

 

[BeeDog]

How do you start Shale's and Zevran's quests?

 

[Mindlog]

Spoiler

Sten actually led my defense forces preventing reinforcements from arriving. He's a tough nut to crack, but once you get his side mission (which is super easy), he becomes alot more understanding.

Spoiler

Oghren

led mine.

I had a lot of fun with that part too. I called in the

Spoiler

Elven Archers

and had my war dog right in front of the door. He'd stun everyone as they came in and they got torn to pieces.

between the

Spoiler

prison sequence and that battle

my dog was awesome

 

[Doytch]

No. Would have been nice additional feature like in ME.

I don't really remember the Codex from ME. Was it as expansive? I know I'm actually reading this one and I didn't really bother with the ME one.

 

[MirageDwarf]

I don't really remember the Codex from ME. Was it as expansive? I know I'm actually reading this one and I didn't really bother with the ME one.

Not as expansive as Dragon Age. But there was good additional information about ME universe. It was divided in primary and secondary. Primary codex entries were audio logs which I liked very much.

 

[kafka rock opera]

How do you start Shale's and Zevran's quests?

Shale quest starts from a vendor in the north western part of the overworld map. Zevran is triggered via the main quest after a certain time you will get the opportunity to add him.

Spoiler

SHALE OWNS.

 

[LCfiner]

Dammit! I'm falling behind with the rest of this thread! :lol

I need more time to play. stupid work and adult responsibilities. maybe I can dedicate all of this saturday to another marathon session.

I need my fiiiiiiiiiiiiiix

 

[luxarific]

How do you start Shale's and Zevran's quests?

Bring Shale

Spoiler

with you when you confront the end boss/enter the final stage (you'll know who/when it is) of recruiting the dwarves.

Zevran

Spoiler

doesn't really have a quest, but if you talk to him you can find out about two articles of clothing he would like. You will find these items in Haven's store and the West Breclian Forest.

There's a random encounter with the Crows in Denerim before the Landsmeet where he may/may not leave you depending on how much he likes you or your persuade/intimidate stat (haven't figured that out).

There's also a not random encounter in the Pearl that you should bring him along on (to pick up the Duelist specialization). Talking to Zevran in camp can get him to unlock the Assassin specialization

.

 

[LocoMrPollock]

Finally finished it up. I rushed through most of the second half and never even encountered Shale or Wynne, might have missed some other peeps too.

I'm a little burned out on it now, but I will definitely take my time the next go around in a few months or so when I can spend more time with it.

 

[nubbe]

Remember...

Levels scale, you can do whatever whenever.
But some things become easier when you can do mass sleep, debuffs or paralysis

 

[alisdair]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

 

[epmode]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

Probably because it's much easier to spot in a completely open-world game like Oblivion than in a very linear game like Dragon Age. This is about as exploration-friendly as KOTOR.

 

[ashism]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

Pacing?

 

[Vinci]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

Because Dragon Age is awesome and Oblivion wasn't even as good as Morrowind?

 

[HiddenWings]

Most of the reason is probably that increasing your level actually makes sense, and the rest is that it's handled intelligently.

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/challenge_scaling

Minor spoilers on that page.

 

[Basileus777]

The level scaling in Dragon Age is fine. it doesn't break immersion or make your character/party feel weak like in Oblivion. Your party does get more powerful relative to the enemies as you level up, and the later quests do tend to end up easier than the earlier ones. If there were no level scaling, the game would become ridiculously easy after the first few major quests you take.

 

[Capsule Gang]

Because in Dragon Age you never fight level 80 sewer rats?

 

[Basileus777]

Because in Dragon Age you never fight level 80 sewer rats?

Or random enemies with the best armor in the game.

 

[water_wendi]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

Because Oblivion handled it in a completely moronic way. Not only did enemies scale with your level but so did the loot. With how Bethesda did it there was never any real challenge nor payoff for any kind of risk.

A question about money.. im at the Circle Tower and im broke as fuck

Spoiler

i went to the tower after Redcliff

. Is there a point in the game when money starts to flow a little bit more freely? i think i have 1g and the only purchases ive made have been the backpacks. The first two were cheapish but the one in the Tower ran me like 7g and broke me.

 

[Capsule Gang]

Or random enemies with the best armor in the game.

Haha, yeah that too.

 

[Vinci]

Because Oblivion handled it in a completely moronic way. Not only did enemies scale with your level but so did the loot. With how Bethesda did it there was never any real challenge nor payoff for any kind of risk.

A question about money.. im at the Circle Tower and im broke as fuck

Spoiler

i went to the tower after Redcliff

. Is there a point in the game when money starts to flow a little bit more freely? i think i have 1g and the only purchases ive made have been the backpacks. The first two were cheapish but the one in the Tower ran me like 7g and broke me.

There are certain bosses you fight where you can get a decent amount of money.

Spoiler

Like the dragon in the ruins. Got 20 gold off that bastard's stash.

 

[Coldsnap]

Am I going to need to start equipping the other characters I'm not using?

Spoiler

I'm worried at the nearing end battle I'm going to have to use everyone that I have recruited so far

 

[slayn]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

What also helps is that the areas of the game are fairly isolated and with their own enemy types. And, at least for me, I tend to mostly complete one area before moving on to the next.

So what ends up happening is that I went to a place with zombies first.
Then next I went to a place with werewolves.

Sure, the werewolves were harder, but in my mind I'm not thinking "oh the game level scaled the monsters" I'm thinking "werewolves are harder enemies than zombies."

At no point in the entire game that I've come across did I run into an old enemy type that was suddenly a much higher level because of scaling. Zombies were a set difficulty. Werewolves were a set difficulty, etc.

If I were to suddenly encounter another mob of zombies that were the exact same enemy type but suddenly they were massively leveled up just because I was then yeah I would be kind of annoyed.

 

[nubbe]

A level 20 orange mob tends to be easier than a level 5 orange mobs because you have better skills and items.

So even if the levels scales it works pretty well since you do feel more powerful.

Like, slaying a dragon on level 15 is much easier than on level 13 thanks to new skills

 

[-tetsuo-]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

Because there are different types of level scaling? I don't travel and run into rats only, then wolves only, then bears only, then trolls only. Every humunoid enemy I encounter isn't armed to the teeth and prepared to fight me with my level appropriate gear.

 

[Tokubetsu]

How the fuck did people beat this in sub 30 hours? I'm about to buck 30 and I've only got like 1 pledge, about to wrap up another. Pretty much all the big story dungeons literally take me all night. I was in the ruins for about 4 hours EASY and couldn't even

Spoiler

beat the high dragon =/

.

 

[SlasherJPC]

How the fuck did people beat this in sub 30 hours? I'm about to buck 30 and I've only got like 1 pledge, about to wrap up another. Pretty much all the big story dungeons literally take me all night. I was in the ruins for about 4 hours EASY and couldn't even

Spoiler

beat the high dragon =/

.

All I can think is that these people must have subtitles enabled therefor they don't listen to the characters speak, they read and proceed. And also they probably do very minimal side quests.

 

[Fredescu]

The scaling problem that Dragon Age does have is difficulty scaling. Each of the locations you can chose to go to in the mid game starts easy and gets harder as you go in. The problem with this is you might finish up one of the main locations and hunger for a bit more, but when you start another one you're in for another half an hour to an hour of easy encounters before you get into the more difficult ones. Yes, you can change the difficulty, but that's inelegant and feels like you're cheating the system when you set it back down.

I guess this is a problem inherent to being able to choose where to go. I hope we get some DLC or expansions that are a bit more linear and therefore have a more linear scale of difficulty.

 

[slayn]

They probably don't even read the subtitles. I imagine they just skip all conversation completely and go to the next marker on the map, kill whatever is there, and so forth.

Never, ever going out of their way to talk to someone unless a map marker tells them to, and skipped all side quests.

 

[Lafiel]

Why did Oblivion get so much shit for level scaling and no-one cares about it in Dragon Age?

It doesn't really matter, since you don't have re spawning enemies. And it's very light-level scaling compared to oblivion.

 

[Tokubetsu]

They probably don't even read the subtitles. I imagine they just skip all conversation completely and go to the next marker on the map, kill whatever is there, and so forth.

Never, ever going out of their way to talk to someone unless a map marker tells them to, and skipped all side quests.

I've burnt at least 2 hours just talking to party members in camp. Sometimes reloading if I piss them off too much.

 

[Vinci]

Sometimes reloading if I piss them off too much.

This is why I probably won't take as long as other people do. I won't reload. I've a basic idea who my character for that playthrough is, what they're like, and I do what I feel they would in that situation. Recently, I've been pissing Alistair off 'cause my mage girl is about as morally flexible as you could imagine.

 

[wayward archer]

Am I going to need to start equipping the other characters I'm not using?

Spoiler

I'm worried at the nearing end battle I'm going to have to use everyone that I have recruited so far

Yes. There is a part at the end where this is important to do. Not a HUGE spoiler (no plot stuff), but a spoiler nonetheless:

Spoiler

During the final battle you control the party members that are not with the main character in a large fight. Make sure you level them up too, because you instantly get dumped into combat and can't access the level up screen until the fight is over

 

[Tokubetsu]

This is why I probably won't take as long as other people do. I won't reload. I've a basic idea who my character for that playthrough is, what they're like, and I do what I feel they would in that situation. Recently, I've been pissing Alistair off 'cause my mage girl is about as morally flexible as you could imagine.

They don't count reload though so you should be actually taking LONGER than us. I'm going by my savefile time.

 

[luxarific]

I've burnt at least 2 hours just talking to party members in camp. Sometimes reloading if I piss them off too much.

This. I love talking to people in Dragon Age. I know Mass Effect will probably have less dialogue because Sheperd is voiced and for the first time ever, I'm regretting the decision to go with a non-mute protagonist. The dialogue and conversation in DA is just so natural and the branching options are actually things I might say. It's amazingly immersive. My hats off to David Gaider and his team for the great job they did.

 

[JBuccCP]

My copy just arrived from Amazon! Installing now (360 peasant), so excited!

 

[JayDubya]

I want to give a quick bit of thanks to the guy that pointed out that the Elves sold infinite quantities of Elfroot.

That made playing through the Urn quest's two quite significant boss fights on Nightmare @ L14 entirely plausible.

I'd already bought out and used all the Elfroot and red pots I could find everywhere else... so having 99 root and making a bunch of normal reds and several greaters was part of what won the day.

The other part was optimizing Wynne's tactics slots. She's a wonderful asset once you get her customized just so (and never wasting her heals on herself when she gets so much bonus health / mana from pots).


Honestly I found the optional boss outside

Spoiler

"Andraste" the High Dragon

less difficult than the fight inside, just before.

 

[Lafiel]

This. I love talking to people in Dragon Age. I know Mass Effect will probably have less dialogue because Sheperd is voiced and for the first time ever, I'm regretting the decision to go with a non-mute protagonist. The dialogue and conversation in DA is just so natural and the branching options are actually things I might say. It's amazingly immersive. My hats off to David Gaider and his team for the great job they did.

Yeah i wish this game had a voiced protagonist, but it probably would've been WAY to much work as far as i'm concerned, considering already the amount of voice-work the game has.

 

[Fredescu]

Increases hosility? On leather boots? I'm not breaking my set bonus for that. The itemisers hate you, they really do.

 

[Sobriquet]

I would like to start my second playthrough, but my wife won't stop playing.