I went through an origin story on Nightmare the other day, chose Dwarf Noble and scraped through with no falls or injuries. I quicksaved a lot, so that's probably cheating! They do throw you into a combat situation where the party is totally surrounded and another with a team of 5 archers and a genlock alpha. Definitely the toughest fights I remember in an origin.
I am playing on hard right and for the most part its smooth sailing. Except for the revenants which are the most broken enemy I have ran into. Because they resist every single spell and ability and hit all the party members with every swing. Its not really a difficult fight, just need ten health potions to get through it.
GriffD17 said:
I'm a little bummed that the tactics part of the combat (i.e., setting up NPC party members in the menu) to not be that intuitive. I've tried different commands, and different "numbered priorites" and it just doesn't seem to work right. That and the game seems a bit more difficult than it should be considering I'm still just beginning essentially.
There are a few difficulty jumps. Namely the one at the tower of ostagar and when you get to Lothering. What problems are you having with tactics? Because I just leave my companions on auto pilot after setting up their self healing tactics and it more or less works out.
Well, at the end of DA:O, you get an "epilogue save". You then have the opportunity to fool around "in camp the night before the final battle". If you save again, even if it's just to change equipment or something, you may have the bug. If it's the untouched epilogue save, you're probably fine.
Here's how to find out: go ahead and fire up a quick Witch Hunt game, using whichever save you want, DA:O, Golems or your current Awakenings save (actually, the latter is probably best). The first two lines of dialogue in the game are the Warden talking to Dog. Both have dialogue choices. The second will be the four choices shown here, if you're lucky. If you see all four of those choices, quit and go on about your business. However, if choice 3 (
you'll help me get the child back, won't you?
) is missing, you might consider redoing the ending of DA:O again and starting your DLC journey over. Especially if you've only done Golems, which you can blow through in an hour or something, if you already know where everything is (and if you aren't too far in Awakenings).
Otherwise you may be like me, wondering if it's worth it to play 20 hours worth of Awakenings again, plus an hour or two each of Golems and WH. The bug is probably just incorrect dialogue, but you never know if it'll mess up DA2 (or beyond) someday.
Yikes. If that happens to me .. I probably won't even play Witch Hunt as that's some BS. Then I'll just import one of my current saves into DA2 (hopefully Awakening).
I'd just try and watching the Witch Hunt dialogue/cutscenes online if I could .. not doing everything over again.
Yikes. If that happens to me .. I probably won't even play Witch Hunt as that's some BS. Then I'll just import one of my current saves into DA2 (hopefully Awakening).
I'd just try and watching the Witch Hunt dialogue/cutscenes online if I could .. not doing everything over again.
Well, if your choices are playing Witch Hunt with a gimped ending or not playing it at all, you might as well play it. When I say that I'm afraid it may be a problem when exporting to DA2, etc, I just mean that the plot choice from DA:O that is wrongly indicated in the bugged Witch Hunt ending may be "locked in". But who knows if DA2 (etc) will even refer to that choice.
I'd still play WH. It's just a quickie like Golems and Leilana's Song, that kind of puts a cap on the whole DA:O package. It's just that it might be the wrong cap.
To reiterate, in the bugged WH ending,
Morrigan is a little butthurt that you refused her dark ritual, even though you accepted it. If you slept with her earlier in the game, you knocked her up anyway, and the kid is still the Old God spawn. And there's a big, final final choice you can make that is still available to you either way.
So I'm thinking of replaying this in preparation for DA2, but I wanna play through all the DLC.
I only have DA:O gonna get the ultimate edition off Steam, is it worth waiting or can I just start DA:O and do the DLC when I eventually get the ultimate edition?
So I'm thinking of replaying this in preparation for DA2, but I wanna play through all the DLC.
I only have DA:O gonna get the ultimate edition off Steam, is it worth waiting or can I just start DA:O and do the DLC when I eventually get the ultimate edition?
Well if you start DA:O, youre gonna have to transfer your save file when you get the Ultimate Edition if you want to play the "in-game" DLC, like Wardens Keep, Shale, and Return to Ostagar
Well, if your choices are playing Witch Hunt with a gimped ending or not playing it at all, you might as well play it. When I say that I'm afraid it may be a problem when exporting to DA2, etc, I just mean that the plot choice from DA:O that is wrongly indicated in the bugged Witch Hunt ending may be "locked in". But who knows if DA2 (etc) will even refer to that choice.
I'd still play WH. It's just a quickie like Golems and Leilana's Song, that kind of puts a cap on the whole DA:O package. It's just that it might be the wrong cap.
To reiterate, in the bugged WH ending,
Morrigan is a little butthurt that you refused her dark ritual, even though you accepted it. If you slept with her earlier in the game, you knocked her up anyway, and the kid is still the Old God spawn. And there's a big, final final choice you can make that is still available to you either way.
I'm replaying DAO with a fresh Warden right now and I hope I don't get that bug. Magazine racks will be toppled if I do...
Anyways, going through DAO as a Dalish Elf is pretty fun. I'm digging how the world reacts to my being an elf. Also looking forward to seeing how WH references the Dalish origin since they share a big piece of mythos.
Currently 30 hours into my play through. Finished the Circle Tower, defended the town of Red Cliffe, saved both the Arlessa and her kid, now going off to get the Urn. Good times.
Finishing my latest playthrough of Dragon Age Origins with the DLC and Awakenings before I buy Dragon Age 2 is just one part of my long list of gaming plans this year. I feel like I'm digging my way out of a bottomless pit of RPGs.
Ugh just hit Denerim and it pretty much killed any momentum that I had. Its exemplifies everything that's wrong with area and side quest design. Its one average sized area packed to the gills with lots or random nodes and NPCs that you have to click on to finish some random pointless quest that you get nothing out of other than some xp and gold. That's not counting all the stuff that's actually relevant to the main plot of the game. I just have no desire to sort through that mess.
Ugh just hit Denerim and it pretty much killed any momentum that I had. Its exemplifies everything that's wrong with area and side quest design. Its one average sized area packed to the gills with lots or random nodes and NPCs that you have to click on to finish some random pointless quest that you get nothing out of other than some xp and gold. That's not counting all the stuff that's actually relevant to the main plot of the game. I just have no desire to sort through that mess.
Because there is a very large number of side quests and its not easy to tell which ones are a completely worthless waste of time and which ones have actually something interesting and worthwhile to them.
Because there is a very large number of side quests and its not easy to tell which ones are a completely worthless waste of time and which ones have actually something interesting and worthwhile to them.
I usually go by the rule of if its a Chanter's Board, or job board or whatever quest, its just for loot and XP, but sidequests given by actual people are usually more fulfilling story-wise
I'm thinking about just getting the CE of DA:O instead of the Ultimate Edition. I just want to play the main story and plus I'm a sucker for Steelbooks, bonus DVDs and cloth maps :X
Just make sure that when you're done with DA:O, before doing the three "sequel" DLC's, you (no story spoiler, just a save system spoiler)
use the save called "Epilogue" that it produces to move on to Awakenings with. You're allowed the opportunity to fool around in DA:O a little more, but don't do it.
Also, I think that this got fixed on PC and 360, and this bug is only on PS3 at this point. I'm not positive about that (Bioware swears on it's official forum that it was fixed on everything including PS3, though that's clearly bullshit).
Laughing Banana said:
I heard that only items obtained at Return to Ostagar are kept in-between save transfers to Awakening? Is this true?
Well, items from vanilla DA:O do, too. But nothing from Stone Prisoner or Warden's Keep. And in fact, Warden's Keep even being installed kind of fucks up all the DLC. There's an iconic sword called Vigilance you can get in DAA, sort of the ultimate Warden's sword. However, if you got the sword Starfall in WK, Vigilance will look just like Starfall. Which is just another dumb bug, and one that sucks, because Vigilance is a really unique looking item. Actually, ALL of the DLC is just jam packed with bugs, and BioWare was pretty lazy about patching most of them, especially on the consoles.
Well, if your choices are playing Witch Hunt with a gimped ending or not playing it at all, you might as well play it. When I say that I'm afraid it may be a problem when exporting to DA2, etc, I just mean that the plot choice from DA:O that is wrongly indicated in the bugged Witch Hunt ending may be "locked in". But who knows if DA2 (etc) will even refer to that choice.
I'd still play WH. It's just a quickie like Golems and Leilana's Song, that kind of puts a cap on the whole DA:O package. It's just that it might be the wrong cap.
To reiterate, in the bugged WH ending,
Morrigan is a little butthurt that you refused her dark ritual, even though you accepted it. If you slept with her earlier in the game, you knocked her up anyway, and the kid is still the Old God spawn. And there's a big, final final choice you can make that is still available to you either way.
Good news .. I finished Awakening tonight and had to check Witch Hunt to see if I had the bug and I got that dialogue option you mentioned on the previous page .. so I'm okay right?
Finished up the Ultimate Edition today after beatin DA:O a while ago. I just had to wrap up the DLC and Awakening.
It was enjoyable for the most part though Im glad I didnt buy each DLC + Awakening separate because thats a bit much for what youre getting.
Awakening was kinda lame. I was never really into the game and it was far too easy.
Golems of Amgarrack was annoying with the different switches and all of the back and forth if you want to collect everything.
Witch Hunt was the one that I really wanted to play because of my characters relationship with her in DA:O and I was left feeling a let down in the end. To be honest, Im not sure what I was expecting but it just felt rushed. Morrigan seemed way to easy to track down which is completely the opposite of what I expected after DA:O and the conversation at the end didnt really say much at all.
The other DLC was very enjoyable though. Stone Prisoner was funny, Ostagar had some cool armor and nice nods to the main story. I really enjoyed Lelianas Song. The Darkspawn Chronicles gets a lot of hate but I enjoyed it for what it was...a stupid bloodbath. I had fun with it.
Just finished a second playthrough - first time on Normal with a mage, second time on Nightmare with a dual-wielding rogue and a few mods to mix things up. For some reason the game was easier the second time on Nightmare (except for the first few hours, when you have no skills and enemies use their highest skills, or things like fire arrows, by default). Probably because by then I had a handle on all the insta-win skills they put in the game (Mana Clash, Force Field, Cone of Cold / Stonefist, etc.), and had no shame about using them.
One thing I don't understand is why the majority of enemies in the latter half of the game were so under-leveled - I guess it underlined how powerful you'd become over the course of the game, but it made things sorta anticlimactic.
The mods took away a lot of the annoyances with the regular game, especially "Advanced Tactics" (can finally order my mages to automatically revive people when they fall, instead of having to do it manually) and "Skip the Fade" (self-explanatory).
In any case, definitely enjoyed the experience. I was thinking of getting Awakenings (only have the original game), but the reviews on Amazon and mentions on here make it seem like it might not be worth it if I don't already have it with the Ultimate Edition.
I very much enjoyed awakenings, though it is definitely not quite as good as DA:O. The soty is pretty interesting, I liked the companions, and both branches of the climax are really cool. Not to mention two of the characters from Awakenings will be showing up in DA2, so there is that as well.
I guess, don't bother spending too many points on constitution (HP) or willpower (MP) when you build your character, because they give only minimal benefit (like 5 HP / MP for each attribute point) and you can eventually manufacture hundreds of health and lyrium potions to restore HP / MP for a few gold.
If you don't want to be constantly annoyed throughout the game, have a rogue in your party with a high cunning stat and/or lockpicking skills. The game is filled with chests and traps that require minimum cunning levels to unlock / disarm. FYI, the "trap-making" skill apparently has no effect on your ability to detect and disarm traps, despite its description.
If you have a fighter character, I'd recommend going the dual-wielding route and getting Momentum as soon as you can. With a mage, Cone of Cold and Force Field are probably the most useful (game-breaking) low / mid-level spells. You can beat a lot of the more difficult enemies in the game (Revenants, dragons) by having them focus on a tank character who has Threaten / Taunt and Force Field, while everyone else stands back and uses ranged attacks.
Some basic control stuff I didn't realize until a few hours in - the "highlight" button (which I eventually had pressed almost constantly) shows you which items and enemies in the room can be looted or examined. Also, the move freely / stop icon below your character portraits allows you to order your characters to stay in place until you direct them, which is useful if you need to split your party up (e.g. enter a room from two different entrances for an ambush), have them stand back from a damaging spell, attack from a distance instead of rushing in, etc.
Gah. Finally doing the Dwarves section of my "canon" playthrough and I'm now paralyzed on the choice of Bhelen or Harrowmont.
Bhelen is a right bastard, but I know that in the end, he ends up being the better king. But he's just so evil! I keep wanting to see what his quests are like, but I can never actually bring myself to choose him. But I almost want to do it this time simply because I know that the dwarves will be better off with him. Gah.
Gah. Finally doing the Dwarves section of my "canon" playthrough and I'm now paralyzed on the choice of Bhelen or Harrowmont.
Bhelen is a right bastard, but I know that in the end, he ends up being the better king. But he's just so evil! I keep wanting to see what his quests are like, but I can never actually bring myself to choose him. But I almost want to do it this time simply because I know that the dwarves will be better off with him. Gah.
Gah. Finally doing the Dwarves section of my "canon" playthrough and I'm now paralyzed on the choice of Bhelen or Harrowmont.
Bhelen is a right bastard, but I know that in the end, he ends up being the better king. But he's just so evil! I keep wanting to see what his quests are like, but I can never actually bring myself to choose him. But I almost want to do it this time simply because I know that the dwarves will be better off with him. Gah.
All I did was one Human Noble origin, but I am considering at least doing all the other origin stories just to see how they are and not actually start another file.
Unless of course one is really, really good compared to the Human Noble then I might have to bite ..
All I did was one Human Noble origin, but I am considering at least doing all the other origin stories just to see how they are and not actually start another file.
Unless of course one is really, really good compared to the Human Noble then I might have to bite ..
The only one that's really terrible in my opinion is the Dalish, and that's only because, beyond your being an elf, there are basically no ramifications later in the same way there is with the other origins.
There is one brief scene with one character from your origin later on, but it's a pretty crappy scene and ends up meaning nothing. Other than that, all you get is a little more trust from the Dalish, but seeing as they basically trust you with no effort whatsoever, there's no real gain and very few different lines.
It's a shame, because I think the Dalish are the most interesting background in the entire game.
All I did was one Human Noble origin, but I am considering at least doing all the other origin stories just to see how they are and not actually start another file.
Unless of course one is really, really good compared to the Human Noble then I might have to bite ..
I've been getting back into Dragon Age: Origins by finishing Awakening today, and now I'm curious about the downloadable content. Did some calculations, and if I want to acquire all the DLC I don't have, it's 19, but if I buy the Ultimate Edition from Zavvi, it's 18, lulz.
My question now is; if I buy the Ultimate Edition, how is the DLC integrated into my EA account? Currently I have DA:O and DA:O-A on Steam along with some pre-order bonuses and whatnot. Does the Ultimate Edition come with vouchers, or...? Thanks in advance.
Good news .. I finished Awakening tonight and had to check Witch Hunt to see if I had the bug and I got that dialogue option you mentioned on the previous page .. so I'm okay right?
Meanwhile, I've almost finished another Awakenings playthrough with a "good" save, and I've actually enjoyed it. there were a few things I missed the first time, and I "main partied" a different crew mostly, so it actually turned out pretty good. Plus, this time I uninstalled Warden's Keep, so Vigilance looks right this time.
X-Frame said:
All I did was one Human Noble origin, but I am considering at least doing all the other origin stories just to see how they are and not actually start another file.
Unless of course one is really, really good compared to the Human Noble then I might have to bite ..
It's definitely worth playing each one up to Ostagar. It's only an hour or two each, and they're all pretty good stories that flesh out the world that much more.
One fun thing about the origin stories, too, is that almost all of them are mentioned somewhere in the story. That is, the ones you didn't choose to play as. Those characters still exist and almost all get mentioned at some point. I think the Human Noble is the only one who doesn't.
I am playing as a rogue, and am literally pausing the game every second or so in combat. This doesnt seem right to me. I know that pausing the action is part of the game, but feeling like I have to micro every single second of the battle seems...a bit off. Am I wrong in this assumption? It tends to be if I let the game go for ten seconds without pausing, a party member will be close to falling. My own rogue I must continuously micro around behind foes. This I understand to an extent. But I feel as though I am missing something. I get that the warriors are supposed to be the meat shields and act as tanks. But even if I activate taunt on one, the baddies seem to continuously seek out the ranged or rogue units in my squad. Any tips? Also, are there no healing spells mages can cast? I am at Redcliffe now, my first stop after setting up camp. Level 6.
Meanwhile, I've almost finished another Awakenings playthrough with a "good" save, and I've actually enjoyed it. there were a few things I missed the first time, and I "main partied" a different crew mostly, so it actually turned out pretty good. Plus, this time I uninstalled Warden's Keep, so Vigilance looks right this time.
It's definitely worth playing each one up to Ostagar. It's only an hour or two each, and they're all pretty good stories that flesh out the world that much more.
One fun thing about the origin stories, too, is that almost all of them are mentioned somewhere in the story. That is, the ones you didn't choose to play as. Those characters still exist and almost all get mentioned at some point. I think the Human Noble is the only one who doesn't.
Witch Hunt, though. I only played through WH with my Human Noble Warden, and they referenced two Dalish Elves finding the mirror and then both of them dying.
Witch Hunt, though. I only played through WH with my Human Noble Warden, and they referenced two Dalish Elves finding the mirror and then both of them dying.
I feel like the difficulty is hardest in the beginning when you're first starting out, then gets easier as you get the more powerful talents and skills. But it could also be the tactics you have set up - do your characters automatically drink potions when they get low on health? Don't worry about running out - if you're past the camp, you already have one character with Herbalism (Morrigan) who can craft low-level health potions, and if you want you can head to the Brecilian Outskirts (Dalish Camp) and buy unlimited elfroots from the vendor there to make as many potions as you want.
One really annoying bug / feature I encountered was that if I had an archer character who had melee weapons as a secondary weapon set, they'd always ditch the bow and arrows no matter what tactics I had set up and head straight into the fight and get slaughtered - so I had to leave them with just bow & arrows (or didn't bother using archers at all, since almost anyone can use a bow when necessary for ranged fights).
As for healing spells, you can head to the Circle Tower to do the quest there if you want to gain a healing character who has heal, group heal and can revive dead characters in battle. That quest also has the infamous "Fade" people reference here, but as tedious as it is, you can get a lot of permanent stat bonuses through it for the rest of the game (you get bonuses for every stat; something like +4 strength, +4 dexterity, etc.) The "Skip the Fade" mod lets you pass 90% of it and still get all bonuses and codex entries, though I played it in full the first time before using the mod for subsequent playthroughs. I think I always did the Circle Tower quest before I went to Redcliffe because the stat bonuses and the addition of the healer character were so useful for everything else.
Witch Hunt, though. I only played through WH with my Human Noble Warden, and they referenced two Dalish Elves finding the mirror and then both of them dying.
I'm rolling a Dalish Wardeb right now. I'm 43 hours in and I'm in Orzammar, helping Harrowmount. Already finished the Circle Tower & Redcliffe/Urn.
I'm definitely looking forward to getting to Witch Hunt. Hoping there'll be some nice references to my origin.
Playing Dalish isn't so bad. If you choose to really get into the character, there ate tons of dialog options you can choose that reflect your Dalish upbringing and your distrust of human ways.
All in all, I'm having a good time with this playthrough. Chose not to
harden
either Leliana or Alistair and Morrigan is in love with me. I haven't done much with Zevran so
I might kill him when he eventually betrays again in Denerim
. My party includes myself, Alistair, Morrigan and Wynn. We've steam rolled everything, save for [spoilers]the the High Dragon and the "Witch of the Wilds"[/spoiler].
I feel like the difficulty is hardest in the beginning when you're first starting out, then gets easier as you get the more powerful talents and skills. But it could also be the tactics you have set up - do your characters automatically drink potions when they get low on health? Don't worry about running out - if you're past the camp, you already have one character with Herbalism (Morrigan) who can craft low-level health potions, and if you want you can head to the Brecilian Outskirts (Dalish Camp) and buy unlimited elfroots from the vendor there to make as many potions as you want.
One really annoying bug / feature I encountered was that if I had an archer character who had melee weapons as a secondary weapon set, they'd always ditch the bow and arrows no matter what tactics I had set up and head straight into the fight and get slaughtered - so I had to leave them with just bow & arrows (or didn't bother using archers at all, since almost anyone can use a bow when necessary for ranged fights).
As for healing spells, you can head to the Circle Tower to do the quest there if you want to gain a healing character who has heal, group heal and can revive dead characters in battle. That quest also has the infamous "Fade" people reference here, but as tedious as it is, you can get a lot of permanent stat bonuses through it for the rest of the game (you get bonuses for every stat; something like +4 strength, +4 dexterity, etc.) The "Skip the Fade" mod lets you pass 90% of it and still get all bonuses and codex entries, though I played it in full the first time before using the mod for subsequent playthroughs. I think I always did the Circle Tower quest before I went to Redcliffe because the stat bonuses and the addition of the healer character were so useful for everything else.
