Im talking how the last time I came in here, I read that there was a bug where dex wasn't being properly applied to daggers and bows which is why rogues were so underpowered, but the hotfix fucked up the game balance if there were archers around.
It didn't fuck up the balance - it did exactly what it's supposed to do. The hotfix applies the fix to every bow in the game, not just the ones your party wields. And enemy archers are supposed to be very difficult in these games, because that's what helps to balance out the playing field, especially given how powerful mages are in Bioware's games.
Wow, with the dex fix, Nightmare Archers are brutal.
I cannot believe that they are now the #1 threat, even worse than mages.
First time this game has given me any serious resistance. I love it!
Zeliard said:
It didn't fuck up the balance - it did exactly what it's supposed to do. The hotfix applies the fix to every bow in the game, not just the ones your party wields. And enemy archers are supposed to be very difficult in these games, because that's what helps to balance out the playing field, especially given how powerful mages are in Bioware's games.
A friend gave me his disk of the 360 game as a gift since he bought the UK CE without knowing a lick of english. Heh. Yay for odd friends.
Also, FML.
My Rogue is stuck in a certain dream (
Circle of Magi -> sloth
), and I'm all out of healing items. I can't get to the NPC with crafting (
Morrigan
), there are no vendors that I know of, the monsters drop no loot, and I'm alone in areas with multiple partially stun-immune mobs ganging up on my fragile dwarf with no beefy Warrior to draw aggro away from him. This is not fun. What's the use of having a sneaky character when you aren't allowed to sneak and forced into clearing out nearly every enemy you encounter. What really gets me though is that they seem to have disabled saving manually and instead rely on an auto-saving solution. Either that or my HDD is full. I lose either way.
Completely useless Mini-impressions-slash-review-slash-rant after playing for maybe 8 hours and watching somebody else play it for longer (skip this if you value your sanity):
Gotta say the game's been rather so-so up to now. Interesting setting and story marred by dubious design, technical inadequacies, and rather strenuous gameplay mechanics. Ridiculous amounts of content though. I mean, really now. There's enough text to read in this game to keep you busy for a lifetime.
Artwork is nice enough, even if there are some questionable designs. Some stalwarts like Mrs Poutylips sideboob McFanservice keep you informed that yes, this is a videogame, no doubt about it. Depends on your taste of course, but all in all pretty agreeable I think. I wish I knew why so many characters look like they're dressed in wet silk though. It just looks odd to me.
Combat is a clunky micromanage heavy mess or a boring snorefest, depending on challenge rating of the enemy. The perpetual stop-and-go with party member switching and circle menu usage is making my head hurt.
The AI is criminally stupid (and outright suicidal) no matter the preset, and developing a good set of custom tactics doesn't really allow for much more flexibility either unless you waste a noticeable amount of precious skill points on additional slots.
The menus are set up strangely and feel ineffective at times. They're bearable on a SD set though, something that cannot be taken for granted nowadays.
Story and Presentation so far have been adequate-to-excellent, although I must say that I was reminded of The Witcher and the LotR movies on more than one occasion. Pretty hit-and-miss, too. Some characters are pretty neat, and well-presented if you bother to look at and talk with them.
Somewhat unrelated: I do look forward to the boinking. I'm sure it will be hilarious.
The game's also somewhat buggy, and the framerate can be horrible at times - I guess the console port nature is responsible for some astonishingly low-rez textures too, which can really get painful in cutscenes, just like the heavily-compressed audio (anything with a stressed "s" sounds grating on my set, either it's dying or they're using something like 32kbit/22.05kHz).
Loading and saving also take up way more time than they ought to. Anyway, bugs. For example, I recently loaded a save, had my character sink into the ground up to his ankles. Unequipped/equipped some stuff, suddenly had duplicates in my inventory. Yikes. I should have exploited that, now that I think about it.
For some reason I cannot shake the feeling that this is a Mass Effect reskin. It feels ...familiar, somehow. More so than it should.
I wish they had implemented some sort of offline multiplayer mode. Maybe the PC mod community could allow for that. Just add another skill overlay, and transfer control of a party member over to another controller. It could work, even if the camera-controlling first player would probably have one hell of a time trying to play and keeping everything onscreen.
All in all: Six point sixtysix out of a possible ten popcorn puffs on my scale. Definitely fun. Get it at around 30-35 bucks, I'd say.
Final thought: By Jove, the dogs are hideous. HI. DE. OUS. There's more pig than dog in those freakish naked greased abdominations. Plus mine brought me used underwear. Yep. Used underwear.
...that Morrigan accepted as a gift for +1 companionship.
), and I'm all out of healing items. I can't get to the NPC with crafting (
Morrigan
), there are no vendors that I know of, the monsters drop no loot, and I'm alone in areas with multiple partially stun-immune mobs ganging up on my fragile dwarf with no beefy Warrior to draw aggro away from him. This is not fun. What's the use of having a sneaky character when you aren't allowed to sneak and forced into clearing out nearly every enemy you encounter. What really gets me though is that they seem to have disabled saving manually and instead rely on an auto-saving solution. Either that or my HDD is full. I lose either way.
First off, you can hit the lyrium veins around for healing. Secondly, you can sneak. Maybe your sneaking sucks? Try the
mouse form
. You can get past the majority of enemies in there. You only need to fight ones right next to the
form barriers: fire, massive doors, etc.
. Furthermore, try using the
different forms! They each allow you access to some pretty awesome attacks. If you have the forms it shouldn't be a problem to use them to kill the enemies near the doors, and if you don't simply sneak.
Or you could turn down the difficulty.
Also, I'm not aware of saving being disabled in there, but I do have the PC version. I would recommend cleaning up your HDD.
Honestly, I didn't find that area at all difficult and I've yet to play a warrior.
Anyone know a place that sell a lot of metal shards? I looked all over Orzammar and none of them had any. You'd think they would be king of the metal trade.
This question about healers was asked earlier and unanswered...
Does the magic attribute affect the amount of healing you're able to do per spell or should you focus on willpower and get magic as needed to equip stuff?
Final thought: By Jove, the dogs are hideous. HI. DE. OUS. There's more pig than dog in those freakish naked greased abdominations. Plus mine brought me used underwear. Yep. Used underwear.
...that Morrigan accepted as a gift for +1 companionship.
I fear scattershotters - I actually have my mage cast blizzard/tempest on archer groups just to get rid of this annoying scattershotting habit of theirs.
I don't agree that they're worse than mages though - a fireball spell from a mage always messes up my party's day.
This question about healers was asked earlier and unanswered...
Does the magic attribute affect the amount of healing you're able to do per spell or should you focus on willpower and get magic as needed to equip stuff?
It'll affect the amount healed per cast since magic affects spellpower, which is the direct stat that determines spell potentcy (and duration, if applicable). I suggest that you focus more on magic over willpower given how freely available and easy lyrium potions are to get or make. Using them is a fast action in the game engine and provided you aren't an absolute cheapskate and put at least a few points in willpower you'll be able to keep casting indefinitely.
It sort of points out one of the real actual "balance" issues-lyrium (not health) potions could probably use a longer cooldown on use to prevent abuse to the point of grossly affecting optimal character builds.
I fear scattershotters - I actually have my mage cast blizzard/tempest on archer groups just to get rid of this annoying scattershotting habit of theirs.
I don't agree that they're worse than mages though - a fireball spell from a mage always messes up my party's day.
Yeah scattershot is awful when enemy archers get it near the end of the game. Any time I see enemy archers I always force my party to run around the nearest corner and wait for them to come to me.
- Scattershot won't leap to other party members if you get distance from the party member who is target of the scattershot.
- Scattershot has a wind up time like all bow abilities and fast-acting CC (Force Field, Crushing Prison) can essentially interrupt it, as well as any stun or knockdown.
- The stun is not long in duration and the damage can usually be dealt with through one cast of Group Heal , if you have it.
If you're playing on nightmare or a modded harder difficultly, you best be planning on how to deal with archers, mages, and elites (hurloc alphas, etc) with your character builds, as those are the real threats in the game, IMO.
Yeah scattershot is awful when enemy archers get it near the end of the game. Any time I see enemy archers I always force my party to run around the nearest corner and wait for them to come to me.
I have not run into curse of mortality yet though.
Fragamemnon said:
A few notes about scattershot:
- Scattershot won't leap to other party members if you get distance from the party member who is target of the scattershot.
- Scattershot has a wind up time like all bow abilities and fast-acting CC (Force Field, Crushing Prison) can essentially interrupt it, as well as any stun or knockdown.
- The stun is not long in duration and the damage can usually be dealt with through one cast of Group Heal , if you have it.
If you're playing on nightmare or a modded harder difficultly, you best be planning on how to deal with archers, mages, and elites (hurloc alphas, etc) with your character builds, as those are the real threats in the game, IMO.
The bounce effect from the target to the other party members will go through walls. The actual shot can be LOS'd if you act fast enough (not easy and usually is not worth the trouble setting up).
Bioware's social site will probably have mostly links back to the nexus at some point.
That's a much better take on Morrigan than a couple of earlier efforts I saw. Honestly, most of the party members could use a bit of a facelift to better match the concept art. Except the dog, of course.
Bioware's social site will probably have mostly links back to the nexus at some point.
That's a much better take on Morrigan than a couple of earlier efforts I saw. Honestly, most of the party members could use a bit of a facelift to better match the concept art. Except the dog, of course.
If a nude mod was ever justified, it would definitely be for this game. Video game sex scenes are ridiculous and embarrassing enough already without the mystical medieval underwear that the Dragon Age characters wear while getting it on.
What I want is nudity in sex scenes. It's more natural.
Zefah said:
If a nude mod was ever justified, it would definitely be for this game. Video game sex scenes are ridiculous and embarrassing enough already without the mystical medieval underwear that the Dragon Age characters wear while getting it on.
One thing I kind of wish DA had is the co-op good ol' Baldur's Gate had. Lots of people may disagree, but to me RPGs can be really good social games if you have some like minded friends.
Holy shit at spell "Force field", the game got a alot easier now that I can use it. The armor I got from Warden Keep for sophia is really good as well for tanks.
Holy shit at spell "Force field", the game got a alot easier now that I can use it. The armor I got from Warden Keep for sophia is really good as well for tanks.
One thing I kind of wish DA had is the co-op good ol' Baldur's Gate had. Lots of people may disagree, but to me RPGs can be really good social games if you have some like minded friends.
Icewind Dale was tons of fun in multiplayer back in the day. We actually played that on the LAN more than we did Diablo 2. It was perfect because we could roll out with four people and 2 AI NPCs and everyone could have precisely the character they wanted.
Sex is extremely awkward in this game. I think that they should have just implied it and left the cutscenes out of it.
"Meh....Easy enough. Hey Alistair! Why don't you taunt them!"
Cast force field then cast perfect storm (blizzard/tempest/spellmight combo) and watch them wither away.
I respecced since otherwise I wouldn't want to play it in such a boring fashion.
Force Field is powerful, but decently balanced when you use it on enemy targets. The taunt thing with it is just pure cheese and you know you shouldn't be doing it.
I thought the spell was tailor made for this strategy hah. Maybe I could force field a emissary but I wouldn't be able to kill it or anything. I'd just be prolonging it's wrath.
Fragamemnon said:
Force Field is powerful, but decently balanced when you use it on enemy targets. The taunt thing with it is just pure cheese and you know you shouldn't be doing it.
How about if you use it on a friendly all of the enmity/hate/aggro that character had is lost. But again, I don't see how this passed Bioware. It's the first thing I thought of when I saw the spell description.
"Meh....Easy enough. Hey Alistair! Why don't you taunt them!"
Cast force field then cast perfect storm (blizzard/tempest/spellmight combo) and watch them wither away.
I respecced since otherwise I wouldn't want to play it in such a boring fashion.
Force Field is powerful, but decently balanced when you use it on enemy targets. The taunt thing with it is just pure cheese and you know you shouldn't be doing it.
I'm doing an offensive mage type right now with very little crowd control spells (only cone of cold).
(all 4 cold spells up to blizzard, lightning spells up to tempest, heal, group heal, misdirection hex, and anti-magic ward).
I'm thinking for the crowd control/defensive mage I might take up the glyph of paralysis, glyph of repulsion (for AoE paralysis explosion), sleep, waking nightmare, all 4 spirit healer spells, heal, and either flame blast/flaming weapons or winter's grasp/frost weapons.
This will let me be able to deal with most mob ambushes, but after all these - what's the next line of spell I should get?
The crushing prison line (with force field only used on enemies) or the mass paralysis line?
Let me know what you guys think - I'm basically trying to make my mages fall in line with the more traditional mage types:
offensive type who has the best offensive power but lack defensive spells
defensive type who has excellent crowd control and healing powers but lack damaging spells.
