quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Gaaah!!!! Friggin Revenant! (Just spent an hour trying to beat the courtyard in Redcliffe Castle, gave up for the night)
The Gallant Knight and his tank buddies would like to remind you that they told you they would be waiting right outside the courtyard, ready to rush in the second you pull the lever to open the courtyard door.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Gaaah!!!! Friggin Revenant! (Just spent an hour trying to beat the courtyard in Redcliffe Castle, gave up for the night)
The Gallant Knight and his tank buddies would like to remind you that they told you they would be waiting right outside the courtyard, ready to rush in the second you pull the lever to open the courtyard door.
Yeah, I busted my ass to finish that fight, only to remember that afterwards. Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:The unfortunate issue regarding DA:O's class imbalance is that mages are overpowered in a way which is not readily fixable. The spells list is a minmaxer's dream, with any given character easily capable of filling up on all the blatantly overpowered spells (Cone of Cold, Force Field, etc) by the early to mid game and having little else to look forward to; fully two-thirds of the spells you can pick are spells you would never use even if you had them, because they aren't even worth spending your mana on when you have options like Crushing Prison.
Secondly, their specialization trees suffer from the same phenomenon. A character that goes Arcane Warrior + Blood Mage has made the "right" choice under most every circumstance, because Shapeshifter is utterly useless and Spirit Healer is a narrow-focus choice primarily for dedicated healers and doesn't mesh too well with incorporation into hybrid roles.
Other classes' specialization trees can only dream of powers as radically powerful and transformative as Combat Magic or Blood Wound.
Combat Magic is an example of a power which is ostensibly balanced by the imposition of a practical effect, but the imposition is easily sidestepped. In this case, the benefit is mostly that you get to wear armor, fight in melee, and escape the terrible itemization of mage gear, but the 'cost' you're supposed to have is that the upkeep of Combat Magic will jack your fatigue level into the 50-60% range easily, making it so that you have traded the bulk of your spell pool for the opportunity to wear armor and fight in melee. Were a character to leave Combat Magic active at all times, they would have only two or three spells per fight before they have essentially exhausted their entire mana pool.
Yet an Arcane Warrior can simply not leave Combat Magic on. They can start every battle wielding a staff, use their entire mana pool with only slightly less efficacy than a 'pure' mage, then once they've expended their mana pool, they can simply toggle on Combat Magic and all related sustainables and indulge themselves in all the benefits with few of the costs. Threat generation is simply not a concern; Arcane Warriors have the most dramatic damage reduction in the game, and most nuke-mages want to build up as much aggro as possible on themselves anyway. Their dramatic AoE threat generation plus Force Field can make them the ultimate tanks, as Dragon Age's enemy AI is silly and even the bosses will hammer impotently at invincible characters.
This leads to paradoxical tactics for people working through the game on the harder difficulties, outside of the homogenized Cone of Cold shatterfests that define 90% of all encounters.
It will be interesting to see how Bioware adjusts the game in the coming months. They may assume that with the public toolkit release and the modding community, they simply don't need to change anything for the core game. Well, that's not likely. They really do have to do a lot to bring mages down and bring rogues up.
Oh, and give people the option to turn their helms invisible.
Boy, the way the whole thing with Loghain and Alistair worked out is in one way very cool. I like games with hard choices, after all. Loghain getting shunted into the Grey Wardens as punishment/chance at redemption is good storytelling.
Alistair getting outraged (justifiably) and abandoning Ferelden, on the other hand, was not. I could see him saying, "Screw you and the horse you rode in on, Elissa," and going to intense dislike, but it really just didn't fit his character for him to leave entirely.
*nod* I agree. In fact, my "saintly" ending was exactly that: I recruited Loghain, and allowed him to sacrifice himself instead of letting myself die. I was rather irritated that Alistair did not consider this to be a good act, because I'm convinced it's actually the win/win ending. (I set up Alistair as king sort of as an apology; I figure he'll forgive me when he's older.)
posted
I wasn't so much irritated at the character's reaction. It was, after all, very plausible if done differently. But that particular reaction, the way it was presented, felt railroaded.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: That bordered on nerd rage, Sam.
Haha. I thought I disclaimered that this is an absolutely great game. My job's to hammer pedantically at issues of game system balance adjustment and analyze how generally competently or incompetently they are managed.
Bioware's management of dao is particularly important to look at since they're ushering in the era of immediate downloadable everything. Prompt toolkit release, updates for everything, even the console releases.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
So do you find that there's a different skillset required of pros as opposed to dedicated amateurs? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So, the final dragon fight on Normal difficulty was pretty easy, though Wynne did have to suck down several potent lyrium potions what with Haste and Cleansing Aura being run nonstop. In fact the entire endgame in Denerim was easy-I never used even one of my armies until the very end, and that was more for novelty than anything else. Every single bad guy was going down literally in one shot, at least all the grunts which was most of them. I wonder if on hard difficulty the enemies change? That would be some potentially tough fighting, if instead of Hurlock grunts they were ordinary Hurlocks. They'd go down quickly, but not so quickly I'd be changing targets as quickly as I could click the mouse.
I had Flemeth & Morrigan's plan all wrong as it turns out. Didn't see that coming until there got to be hints late in the game that some additional Gray Warden sacrifices would be needed. I thought Flemeth sent Morrigan out strictly in order to have a tougher, more powerful body to take over when the time came, assuming that she actually steals their body as opposed to sacrificing it somehow to rejuvenate herself.
The way Morrigan left was very promising for sequels, but dissatisfying from my near-saintly perspective, from a storytelling point of view. I mean, every inch of the way, almost, my character has been toeing the Grey Warden/good guy line, showing no reluctance to risk or sacrifice myself. In fact the only substantive deviation was killing Loghain. But then along comes Morrigan. "Hey, buddy old pal ole friend of mine, listen, forget all that destroying the archdemon stuff. Instead, give it to me in the form of a malleable human baby! Oh, and don't ask any questions or expect to have even the slightest involvement in either raising or watching over this child-just trust me, the one who had this evil plan from the very beginning. Also, couldya get your lover to impregnate me in a dark ritual, and thus father my human infant sacrifice?
Me: Ummmm...no, Morrigan, I'm not going to do any of that.
Morrigan: Well, go to hell then! I'm leaving, screw this!
Was baffling more than distressing story-wise.
SPOILER
I'm wondering if a Mage can be effective with Coercion. My Rogue could, since it was tied to cunning and of course she had gobs of that. But it's a dump state Mage-wise.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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On the other hand, this appears to have been a pre-arranged plan between Flemeth and Morrigan from the very start-so I suspect this ending is on rails.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I believe someone mentioned it here, but apparently specializations when unlocked are unlocked across all characters on that particular profile, because I just dinged 7 and have access to Spirit Healer, even though I only met Wynne in my origin, and Arcane Warrior, even though I never went to the place to get that, either.
I'm debating whether or not to just take it now well in advance of the time I could actually obtain it, saying to hell with it to balance, or to keep it real, hehe. It would be fun wearing all the armors, since as a Rogue I was limited too.
SPOILER
As a male mage, it was very easy to get involved with Morrigan, heh. In fact, I did so immediately after leaving Flemeth's Hut, at the 'random' encounter where you pick up the dog. This was made easier by the fact that there are already a few items at that point in the game that can be given as gifts to her.
The strange thing, though, is that while at first she said she would teach me Shapeshifting - I even got the notification that it was unlocked - when I accidentally clicked on that later, I got the same reaction as if I'd pissed her off, despite being in a relationship with her, having approval at the mid-60s, and her already having unlocked it for me. Weird.
I don't think I'll take it anyway though, because it just doesn't look that useful. Only four measly animals to change into? Pft.
posted
While shapeshifter is lackluster, I have found Ranger to be quite useful. It's not a powerhouse, but it's great to have an extra meatshield.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Man, on Hard difficulty the game while playing with a mage as the PC is really not much more difficult at all than on Normal difficulty. Maybe even a bit easier, in fact. I may crank it up to nightmare during this playthrough.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Just finished the Forest section, out of order I think, and I headed to Redcliff.
I seemed to kill all of the enemies, but all of the guys near the Chantry died. Yet the game won't advance past this...I have covered all of the map, even, but can't find what I misses.
I DID forget to talk to the head of the Chantry, but I had already asked her blessing.....do I have to restart from before the fighting again?
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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There's not exactly a necessary order for the three alliances, though Alistair does if I remember correctly lean you towards Redcliffe. You won't have hurt anything by going to the Brecilian Forest first, in fact I think that's the shortest of all four stops (counting Redcliffe) by a substantial amount.
You may get quests from the Chanters' Boards and other places that take you back there, though.
As for your question about the fight, you mean the second stage of the 'defend against zombies' fight, right? I had a similar problem with the first stage - it wouldn't advance - and others have had odd non-starting problems, too. I ended up replaying it.
SUGGESTION-SPOILER
Going to the Circle of Magi first is really a good idea. I can elaborate if you like. You can even reload before the Redcliffe fight and just head to the Circle from there, disregarding the whole 'we're doomed tonight' business if you choose.
posted
Oh, I see-I misread you to be saying you did the forest section first:)
If you've got Wynne in your group, you ought to consider having her heal the NPCs as well, or at least those you want saved such as possibly Murdock or Tomas. And if she's high enough to have Cleansing Aura, it works on all friendlies.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
One thing I'm not a fan of about this game is its inventory system. There are a good number of items I discover while I play that, for whatever reason, I don't want to get rid of, but you don't even get a chest in camp to store things in without an expansion. The only real option is to sell it to a vendor, but then you have to buy it back at a serious expense. That's not a problem for trivial things like gifts for characters you either don't have yet or don't need yet, but for things like an armor set that increases one form of elemental resistance, but not much else, there's nothing. Or class-specific items.
Finally in frustration I took to looking up the necessary stuff to access the console and add money-not to buy things I couldn't afford, but to buy back things I couldn't afford.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I figured there would be add-ons, I was just gonna wait a little while - give `em time to be used by tons of people - before I snapped one up. Just got the DLC, though, and that chest not only isn't in your camp, it has a maximum capacity.
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