[Herra Tohtori]

funky, is that the Mass effect spaceship?

It could be. There are some similarities, but they are somewhat limited nonetheless.



It might just be epileptic trees, but nonetheless it's an interesting possibility to think of while playing the game...

[Ace]

No wonder the Reapers want to wipe out all organic life, it's to prevent Blights

I wonder what indoctrination would do to Fade spirits...

[Stormkeeper]

Been having quite a ball with this, but a few sore points ...

I think the game needs a stash. Desperately. I'm a walking armory now, lugging around all my unique weapons and runes. Also, ingredients are hard to find once you start really getting into the whole crafting thing. And not enough magical boomz for my liking. Also, during a certain defensive mission, I laid traps down, but they removed them for the actualy defense, and then after the battle was over, lo and behold! My traps!

But the game is freaking awesome! I don't know if any of you have noticed the sync kills your melee characters get, but I love watching the decapitations. Especially the sync kill on the dragon. I wonder what if you're a two-hander ... The characters are very memorable, especially Shale and the mabari. I like watching the dog needle Morrigan.

Yeah, the story is a bit limp though.

[Flipside]

Still in the early stages, quite enjoying it so far, but it's still to early to form an opinion, nice gameplay, but so far, too much of the 'wander round and talk to people' syndrome for my taste, hopefully there's more bashing and less chatting later on...

[Fury]

I think the game needs a stash. Desperately. I'm a walking armory now, lugging around all my unique weapons and runes.

There is, it's the Warden's Keep which comes with some versions of the game like Shale. You can't have both for free I think, but you can buy it. IMHO it's stupid to have those two as DLC's because they are both notable part of the game.

Still in the early stages, quite enjoying it so far, but it's still to early to form an opinion, nice gameplay, but so far, too much of the 'wander round and talk to people' syndrome for my taste, hopefully there's more bashing and less chatting later on...

This is not Diablo you know.

[Flipside]

I'm not expecting Diablo, but what I am expecting is a game, not a glorified chat room staffed entirely by bots

Something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights would be fine, but at the moment, I've done considerably more chatting to people than anything else.

[TrashMan]

Also, during a certain defensive mission, I laid traps down, but they removed them for the actualy defense, and then after the battle was over, lo and behold! My traps!

Let me guess. Redcliffe?
the day and night maps are two different things. You placed the trapns on the day map and when you started the conflict it loaded the night map. No wonder your traps were gone.


I agree that the game is great. But there are several things that rub me the wrong way:

1) Weapon scaling - one the importer/exporter is finished, I can hopefully fix that rather fast. Some weaposn are OK, but msot are not.

2) Attributes. Absolutely hate how they are handeled here. Frankly the whole leveling scheme doesn't sit well with me. Why? Let's see - you start off as a healthy, trained individual. So physicly, you're as fit as your'e average soldier - or slightly above average. Just how much better can you get?

If 15 is roughly an average strength, and 0 is no strength, then 30 should be the ABSOLUTE maximum anyone can ever hope to achieve (that's assuming 15 is average). Except you can go far beyond that. So either your character starts like a total wuss(which makes no sense) or he can become stronger than superman (which makes no sense).
The second problem with this is that it encouranges min/maxing to an awful degree. A good wariror should be well rounded, but in this game this is rarely so, since you need super-high scores for talents. Which sucks.

Now, I'd gladly change the starting stats, point and limits (and spells, feats and items corespondingly) so that you get 1 attribute point per level, but it plays a bigger role. Still not sure if I can do that..I'm still playing so I don't spend much time with the toolset.
Long story short, I'd re-balance everything.


3) Bioware still didn't learn one lesson - nobody wants to get a allready fully-speced NPC. IF I go to the Circle Tower and get Wynne that's level 10, then MOST of her spells and talents are alrleady assigned. And usually in a terrible manner that completely clashes with my party.
SOME pre-configured skills are necessary, but not so damn many. If she was lvl3-5 and just got an XP boost when joins, she's still be the same level and still mantain her "vibe" but I could guide her tactical development somewhat at least.

4) Smaller inventory - a storage box in the camp. Tehre's n oneed to carry gifts adn runes with me anyway.

[TrashMan]

Something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights would be fine, but at the moment, I've done considerably more chatting to people than anything else.

Welecome to roleplaying - where everything is NOT about combat.

[Flipside]

Thanks for completely missing the point.

[Ransom]

Honestly, I thought some of the combat sections were altogether too long. The dialogue was the fun part for me and there were times when you'd go for hours without any of it. The game would've benefited from a more even mixture, I think.

[Stormkeeper]

There is, it's the Warden's Keep which comes with some versions of the game like Shale. You can't have both for free I think, but you can buy it. IMHO it's stupid to have those two as DLC's because they are both notable part of the game.

Apparently if you buy the Collector's Edition. Damnit. I was debating to get it, but defaulted to the normal.

[Flipside]

Honestly, I thought some of the combat sections were altogether too long. The dialogue was the fun part for me and there were times when you'd go for hours without any of it. The game would've benefited from a more even mixture, I think.

Exactly, I haven't come across any combat sections that were too long, but then, as I said, I haven't played it far yet, but I did feel the first few sections of the game contained far too much talking and not enough doing stuff. I can understand the need to set the scene, but most RPG's tend to intersperse that with interaction, whereas I found myself wandering around Elf encampment for 40 minutes, taking a quick break hitting stuff in the castle, only to presented with yet more talking, a short cutscene, and then a repeat of being left to wander around, only at a different location, I hope this isn't a theme that continues throughout the game. At the moment, it plays like Titan Quest without the Quest.

[Spoon]

If 15 is roughly an average strength, and 0 is no strength, then 30 should be the ABSOLUTE maximum anyone can ever hope to achieve (that's assuming 15 is average). Except you can go far beyond that.

This is not D&D you know? 
Considering you need 36+ strength to wear most platemails, you can naturally assume that a healthy fit knight requires a lot more strength then 15 and thus, strength of 30 is not 'superhuman'. Also, you can play as a dwarf, so stop comparing everything to humans.

[Herra Tohtori]

What I found odd that the most lethal parts of the game thus far have been random encounters while traveling (plus a few templar-filled rooms in the Circle Tower). I mean what the heck, you encounter a wolf pack with like twenty wolves and all your characters are immediately Overwhelmed and mauled to bits since you only have Morrigan's Mind Blast to really affect all the enemies within range and it takes rather long (in combat time) to charge. Sure, a couple boss fights were sort of hard (Circle of Magi end fight and the subquest in the Fade mostly), but I've had random encounters at least as difficult as them.

Then there's the fact that in most cases you can just sit outside the combat range from the majority of enemies, equip ranged weapons and just keep shooting at them, which lures individual combatants to your party leaving the majority of the enemies just standing there stupidly while their pals are getting killed one by one... of course, the situation changes drastically when the enemies ARE smart enough to attackyour party as a group when you shoot one of them.

Also the most hilarious combat method to me is to put the group in the adjacent room to the large group of enemies, then make the dog aggro the hell out of the enemies (I called him Fluffy) while Morrigan bombards the enemies with Drain Life, Winter's Grasp and Affliction hex from the adjacent room and the two other party members block the route to Morrigan. The dog usually buys it, but most enemies aren't smart enough to run to Morrigan's location as a group, and instead focus on the dog. And when the dog is dead, usually just the individual being attacked starts running towards Morrigan, and when they get in range you can use Cone of Cold to let your melee fighters hack them to bits. Or you can lop an area-effective spell at the hostile occupied room when you start getting them.

Of course, this has the unfortunate side-effect of Morrigan starting to level faster than other party members and it also shows in the statistics; Morrigan is responsible of 45% damage my party has done...

The most difficult fights are thus the ones where you have to initiate conversation or step within close range before they turn hostile (cause you can't really attack non-hostiles), which brings your group clustered within the enemy ranks in a very un-tactical manner, and fights where your group is heavily outnumbered.

Summa summarum, most of the time I don't have any difficulty getting my party through the fights at Normal difficulty, then all of a sudden a Revenant or a group of Shades pop up with a bunch of minions and utterly decimate my party.

[Fury]

TrashMan has failed reasoning. While attributes are measured by numbers, increase of 10 might be only a minor, albeit noticeable increase in strength if it were real life. It is just a way to measure attributes, you shouldn't read too much into it.

There is a mod which allows you to reset character stats. http://social.bioware.com/project/469/#details

Flipside, personally I'm a bit baffled by your complaints for lack of combat. There's been plenty of it so far. I never even had any such thoughts as it having too little combat. On the contrary actually, some of the areas are so large that I've been wondering whether it ever ends and I can get back to the camp, equip newly found items and sell off the rest.

Too bad the game does not allow more than three companions in the party. It'd be pretty fun to storm places with your full merry band of misfits. Assuming of course that the game auto-balances encounters accordingly.

HerraTohtori, that is why especially in the higher levels your main tank will need a shield and Shield Wall ability, which prevents knockdowns. It is also funny how useless my primal-specialized mage is most of the time, because he can't blast enemies away without also blasting his own melee warriors away. Well, he works well as a healer.

[Flipside]

As I've said, I've really not got that far into the game, so I'm only speaking from first impressions, and the pace is a bit slow at the start. I don't doubt from comments on here that it will improve, but that was my feelings from the first hour or two of play

[Herra Tohtori]

HerraTohtori, that is why especially in the higher levels your main tank will need a shield and Shield Wall ability, which prevents knockdowns. It is also funny how useless my primal-specialized mage is most of the time, because he can't blast enemies away without also blasting his own melee warriors away. Well, he works well as a healer.

Yes, but since Wynne is worthless at dealing damage and Morrigan is worthless at healing (since I built here as a damager/debilitator; in retrospect getting some spirit healing ability would've been wise but it doesn't seem to fit her character at all ) I need to have both of them in my group unless I want to rely on health poultices all the time.

Also, since I'm a munchkin of highest order I need a rogue to be able to loot locked containers, and that means Leliana or Zev, and neither are well suited for prolonged melee combat - Zev perhaps slightly better, but I usually take Leliana along because I don't exactly trust Zev.

That leaves my PC who is built as a sort of balanced DPS warrior rather than a tank, but with Wynne in the group he usually lasts long enough, especially when I position Morrigan tactically enough to disable multiple hostiles at once with a single Cone of Cold (wonderful spell that). Which is why I usually disable free movement as soon as combat begins and micromanage my party members each to where I want them to be.

Also, even if I had a main battle tank in my party, it doesn't usually help that much at the hardest battles where there are enemies everywhere and all your party members are just swarmed... makes me miss my good old Force Wave.

Also also, I hate Fireballs...

Also also also, the injuries and their consequences are ridiculous. Cracked skull -> penalty to Cunning? You'd be hospitalized for a cracked skull! heck, you would hardly be conscious because of concussion and you could die of brain swelling or hemorrhage. Torn jugular, penalty to Constitution? Gimme a break, if your jugular veins are torn you're getting a massive penalty to "consciousness" and "staying alive despite massive bleeding". It's a lethal injury in a very short time. Same with stuff like wrenched limb, broken bone, coughing blood and other similar stuff; the party continues as before, moving at same rate and even running (with torn jugulars lol) and just suffer some penalties to their stats. And it takes all believability from the whole system of injuries...

[TrashMan]

TrashMan has failed reasoning. While attributes are measured by numbers, increase of 10 might be only a minor, albeit noticeable increase in strength if it were real life. It is just a way to measure attributes, you shouldn't read too much into it.

No, my reasoning is not flawed. If you have a numerical mesure for strentgh, then you have some minimum, average and maximum numbers.
The way the attributes and it's effects on spells/skills/itmes scale make no sense. The way the game encourage/forces you to destribute makes no sense.

You can argue that the values scale by some strange function, but in that case the system has failed in being intuitive.

[Fury]

Herra Tohtori, so uh your party consists of a melee dps warrior, two mages and a melee rogue? Well, rogue archer works much better I think. You'll probably end up having quite a bit of hard time in many fights because your warrior gets absolutely mutiled due to different knockdown abilities tossed at you. Not only that but any enemies who flank your warrior receive bonuses to their damage and hit. One of the shield abilities prevents those flanking bonuses. I'm not saying a tank without shield doesn't work, but some fights are much, much harder. Though I reckon one mage for crowd control and another for healing makes up for it.

At the moment my usual party is my own character which is primal-specced mage and healer (have yet to specialize him as spirit healer, but intend to do that), Alistair, Shale and Leliana. Where Alistair fails as a tank, Shale usually pulls off and vice versa. Though in my setup Shale works as melee dps, which is really good btw. I might just try to see what he can do as ranged dps.

What really bugs me is how limited straight damage dealer mage is in usefulness. There just aren't enough situations where you can make most use out of the primal magic. Though it is funny to cast tempest and firestorm to an adjacent room and block enemies way to my mage, if it is possible at all. So in the end most useful mage is one that does crowd control and healing. I wonder how gimped that makes player character in those solo situations you're forced to enter into. Bah.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, my character does use shield and main hand weapon and he does have that shield specialization... so maybe DPS is a bit of a bad term to use. Let's just say he's more of a balanced character between str, dex and con attributes rather than a primary tank. And I usually try to keep the rogue at the back with a ranged weapon. But still, my PC doesn't usually last all that long when he's bogged down with enemies. And it gets even more difficult when the enemies swarm upon the rest of my group.

Let's call it a challenge rather than dumb character leveling.