[PC] Dragon Age: Car Origins

Btw, it's only hard when you're looking at it from a FPS perspective. It's rather easy from a RPG perspective.

 

I don't know. It's one of the harder rpgs I've played in a while. I guess I haven't played many of this sort in quite some time. I tend to use mmorpg tactics, like pulling small numbers of enemies towards my group using my main guy, who is a rogue and can stealth. He is pretty much garbage when it comes to fighting though, so I spend most of my time trying to keep him alive with heals. My companions pretty much do all of the fighting. Having only four tactic slots makes it hard to automate them, so I have to micromanage everything, which I don't mind.

Seems easier than the PC rpgs I played as a kid, like Pool of Radiance, Legacy of the Ancients and things like that.

 

Interesting that you mention this, as I was thinking the exact opposite that it's not on rails enough.

The storyline would have been a lot more cohesive if there was a progression on how you do things. But being able to jump around everywhere willy nilly sorta lessens the storyline a bit.

Also, as I've noted before about these things, it sorta ruins the sense of progression. Since all area's are set you level range when you first enter them, there's never a time when you go to a place and feel overwhelmed (except one, a plot fight) and think, "retreating now will allow me to fight another day."

And then you build up, come back and with your newfound strength overpower the previously insurmountable hordes.

I REALLY miss older RPGs had didn't outright prevent from going to a place, but the enemies were so tough you had to pretty much progress along the storyline. On rails experience where it didn't feel like you were on rails.

Either way, this is still by far the best RPG of the 2000's IMO.

Regards,
SB

 

I do similar MMO tactics, except I do the one tank to tank them all tactic. One fully buffed and outfitted tank that can hold aggro. And depending on the area/fights. Either 3 dps (one or two of them also being a healer) or a MA (main assist) tank with 2 dps (one healer). Either way, it makes virtually all fights fairly easy on Normal, with a few exceptions that prove somewhat challenging.

Combat is definitely far easier than the RPGs of the 80's and early 90's. The awkward controls and realtime combat make it harder than it actually is, but liberal use of the spacebar to simulate turn based combat makes it significantly easier.

Regards,
SB

 

My problem is my tanks suck and I can't heal them fast enough. I was using one guy that was particularly good at taking aggro, but not good at actually tanking the damage. And my created character is basically garbage in combat. He seems to miss a lot and he doesn't do a lot of damage. I specced him out so he's supposed to get backstabs on stunned enemies, but his damage seems really low anyway. So I kind of have a 3 man team during combat, and one guy that I have to struggle to keep alive.

 

So on rogues, I was looking at some builds the other day and alot of them have lots of STR, over 20.
When I made him I only put a few points into STR, I'm putting points into DEX,cunning mostly when I level up. Is STR more important for rogues in DA:O then it was in NWN1/2?

 

Hard to say, but I've been putting points pretty evenly into DEX and STR once I got Cunning up to around 24.

 

All this is IMO, of course.

But for...

Ranged Rogue - Dex and Cunning and only enough strength to wear medium armor (dragonscale). Spec to have cunning replace strength for damage calculations.

Melee Rogue - Strength and Dex and only enough cunning to qualify for whatever highest level of skill/talent you want to use. Favor Strength over Dex. Strength will be important to determine what weapons you can use as well as damage. Both str. and dex. contribute equally to chance to hit. Dex if you want more avoidance in case of drawing aggro. Str if you want more armor in case of drawing aggro.

Oh and willpower if you want to spam a lot of skills. I wouldn't put many points into willpower though, IMO. Magic for more benefit from heal pots, but I try to avoid using heal pots so I don't bother with that on non-mage characters.

Regards,
SB

 

From my current playthrough here is what I have determined is the best tanks without using a lot of defense oriented spells.

Alistair - by far the best tank. The use of shields greatly reduces his weakness to ranged attacks (all the other NPC tanks suffer from this). He's best suited to have not only a high armor score but a high defense score, both of which are incredibly important.

Any non shield tank with Shale spec'd to provide rooted bonus to group. You could combine this with Alistair for a godly unkillable tank if you wanted. But it brings the non-shield tanks up to Alistair's level. Drawback is that your group has overall far less DPS when Shale is in this mode. Benefit is that even your weak characters become light tanks. Shale is also a GREAT dps tank for those fights that don't require a really good tank.

If you throw spells into the mix and go with a more "clericy" build for a mage. You can stick some massive defensive buffs on your MT. Add in regen boosting buff and buff to auto-revive if knocked out and they'll be around for quite a while.

And and throw in Champion spec for real tanks. The Champion group buff + Shale in support = virtually unkillable party. Throw in a mage with Cleansing Aura and you don't even have to bother healing most of the time. But be aware that Cleansing Aura drains mana rather quickly unless you have at least 3-4 mana regen from items.

Alternatively, you can focus fire on ranged attackers early in a fight, ranged attacks can rip apart non-shield tanks fairly quickly.

Also, spellcasters can be a problem if they aren't dealt with quickly and/or your tank doesn't have the right resists. I find it easier just to nuke down casters quickly rather than worry about resists for the majority of caster heavy fights. You'll learn to hate a certain bloodmage hideout if don't.

Oh and one tactic on my MT is to use a health potion (lowest first) when at 50% health or less. And again, if that + heal spell isn't enough, space bar and have him drink a stronger health potion. Health potions make almost all fights incredibly easy. So I rarely ever use them. I haven't bought or made a heal pot yet. And I have like 35 light, 50 regular, 20 high, and 10 very high quality heal pots. As well as over 100 elfroots from looting.

Regards,
SB

 

Dagger damage is broken at the moment, there is an unofficial patch.

I tried pitching Alistair (full shield specced templar/champion) as my champion in the Landsmeet duel on hard ... and OMG did that fail immensely (might be doable with about 2 dozen of the best pots but screw that). Guess my PC mage has to do it for him.

 

The link for that hotfix:
http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/hotfix/dexterity_hotfix_101#fn__1

 

Speaking of rpg's

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Patch v6.6 - The new version fixes more bugs and unlocks more of Troika's content that was never active within the game
http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php#66

ps: I know the patch has been mentioned but I think this is an updated one
A manual patch is now available for Dragon Age: Origins, updating BioWare's recently released RPG to version 1.01b with the same changes and fixes from last week's Steam patch. These include various bug-fixes as well as tweaks to the easy and normal difficulty levels.

http://www.atomicgamer.com/file.php?id=82136

 

Finished it and must say I'm a bit disappointed ...

Spoiler

No real surprises after Loghain's betrayal, unimpressive antagonists, shallow magic system, distinct lack of truly epic story potential in the vain of BG2 ... in some endings there is the potential of absorbing some of the old god's power which could provide a path to epicness, but a lot of the ending's don't even offer that so I don't imagine that is the direction it will go.

The Arch demon doesn't hold a candle to Sarevok ... BG this ain't.

 

I just finished it also but have some generally different opinions.

Spoiler

Yes game is pretty straightforward after the Landsmeet, but it's basically endgame there. The only bit of a twist is found with Morrigan. I thought the magic system was fairly comprehensive myself, adding in spell synergies (Fire + Grease for instance). Specializations affected gameplay more than I expected prior to release.

The overall story still felt suitably epic, even without a truly epic adversary (in anything other than story). IE - the final fight with the archdemon was a bit of a joke. I'm not sure how you could possible lose the final battle. In fact, one of the battles leading up to Fort Drakon was far more challenging.

Overall, however, I found this far better than BG from a storytelling/"roleplaying" perspective. Although all dialog choices are basically flavor and don't affect the overall story, I was still far more involved in my "role" than I was in BG.

Also, I liked how it paid a little bit of homage to Fallout I with detailing how your actions affected the world after the story ends. Different choices = differnt end summaries. It's a nice touch.

Anyways, off to start a rogue playthrough, then warrior, then another mage. Only other game this decade I've played through more than once was Overlord (first one, second one sucked) and Diablo II (due to excellant multiplayer co-op).

Regards,
SB

 

BTW, this game suffers majorly from the "non casters can't have anything nice" syndrome ... why no bloody stamina potions? Why do the splash effect items have pitiful range and spread?

Crushing prison on my mage and Alistair not being able to dispel it because he pretty much never has stamina is damn annoying.

 

Yeah, on my mage playthrough I ended up giving Alistair some points in Willpower so he'd have more stamina in order to have 2-3 concentration abilities active and still be able to do a couple things.

My only other major gripe is that the mana/stamina regen song for bards don't seem to up regen all that much, even with a very high cunning.

I have a feeling my rogue playthrough will be easier early in the game and harder in the later stages of the game.

Regards,
SB

 

tactics tactics tactics... IMPORTANT!

Well 10 tries trying to take down an enemy or good tactics on my terms to crush the enemy in one try!

 

Shrooms give you stamina.

 

I lost the final battle repeatedly!

Spoiler

Underleveled, Wynne kept dying to stupid crap, and then when everything was going well (about to burn him down after the two waves), he lands on Wynne and Leli. WHOOPS. Oh well PC and Alistair plus lots of health potions were enough.

In hindsight, I should have not just been like "LANDSMEET THIS MEANS ENDGAME SOON LET'S RUSH THE HELL OUT OF THAT" and instead leveled a bit more...

 

One of these days I'm going to try telling every playable character to f*ck off. I wonder how the story will play out if it's just me, Alistair and Cudawg (faithful warhound). I suppose Morrigan sticks around...