Dragon Age: Origins Catch-All

Anyone heard any rumors about an Ultimate Edition like they had for Origins? Is the DLC for DA2 essential?

I thoroughly enjoyed DA2, but it is a very, very different game. I'd suggest waiting awhile, so the memories aren't so fresh, or it's going to feel All Wrong.

Was thinking the same thing. Also with DA3 coming out, it may help me keep the "must buy new game" syndrome at bay. Will maybe move on to The Witcher 2 or some Sins of a Solar Empire.

Also the character designs in DA2 make the characters in DA:O look like poorly animated mannequins.

dragon age 2, its ok for a single playthru but its not a keeper. By the third act i was getting a bit bored of environment repetition and the plot holes were starting to grate. But on the bright side the combat looks much better, and of course the VA, the UI , skill trees/abilities and team interactions were all top notch Bioware.

Malor's right. Apart from a few references it's like playing a different game.

MWdowns, i would suggest Witcher 2, I loved DAO, liked da2 but worship Witcher2. Some things Bioware do better than Cdprojek - Voice work, UI, skill/ability trees but besides that the Witcher 2 looks and feels about 3 years ahead of DA2. Great story, great music, mind blowingly good graphics- if your pc is up to it.
Dragon age 3 is not coming out for quite a while i thought - feb 2014?? or are they aiming for a xmas 2013 to go along with the new consoles ?

Yeah, Brownypoints, that's what I ended up doing. Started The Witcher 2 for like the 6th time since I bought it when it first came out. Hopefully this time I can get past Act 1. For some reason I always start playing it right about the same time that I begin my yearly "burn out on games" period. Hopefully this time I can hold that off for another month or so.

I was gift Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition during last summers Steam Sale by garden_ninja. I had started the game then and got to about where you had to go into the wilds and stopped. Recently for some unknown reason I decided it was time to dig in again. My only previous experience with Dragon Age was playing Dragon Age 2 to completion so in a way it was like rewinding time and finding out how the world got to where it was for DA2.

Right now I'm finishing up in Lothering but I can't help but think that Dragon Age 2 was much better at informing me what my party is going to do when we go into battle and how they will react while DA:O I can't seem to find the rhyme or reason behind why my party either succeeded or failed. The only thing I regret, much like Dragon Age 2, is that we can't have more people in a party at the same time.

The one thing I am enjoying quite throughly is seeing my favorite characters from Dragon Age 2 in the first. Out of all of them seeing Merrill and where she came from was interesting and just added to my enjoyment of her character in the second game.

So while I can see why people think Dragon Age Origins is "better" I still find the combat and even dialogue choices better, in Dragon Age 2. Still need to complete it, maybe by the time I complete it I'll be of a different opinion in time for Dragon Age 3's new combat and conversation system.

I felt like I didn't really understand DA:O's combat until I finished my first playthrough. I turned it down to easy just so I could complete the game. I had a much easier time on my second time through the game. The tactics made more sense, I had a better idea of what each class's abilities were for and how they could be used, and I understood the buffs and debuffs a lot better. I completed it on Normal with no major issues except perhaps at the start of the game where your abilities are limited. If I play a third time, I may bump the difficulty up to Hard and see how I fare.

In a lot of ways the game feels like a board game to me, and I love how I can pause combat and think through a situation before committing to a course of action. I never played Baldur's Gate so this may be old hat for veterans of those games, but to me it was a new experience I hadn't had in a game before. I haven't gotten to DA 2 yet, but I'm curious if the changes to the combat will bother me. From what I've heard, they probably will, but the character interaction sounds a lot better than in Origins, so that may make up for it.

Actually, since I'm playing XCOM right now, I'm thinking that Dragon Age redone in turn-based XCOM-like squad tactics would be freakin' awesome.

XCOM is on my list to play for basically that exact reason.

beanman101283 wrote:

In a lot of ways the game feels like a board game to me, and I love how I can pause combat and think through a situation before committing to a course of action. I never played Baldur's Gate so this may be old hat for veterans of those games, but to me it was a new experience I hadn't had in a game before. I haven't gotten to DA 2 yet, but I'm curious if the changes to the combat will bother me. From what I've heard, they probably will, but the character interaction sounds a lot better than in Origins, so that may make up for it.

While DA:O's combat is certainly more chess-like or strategy-slanted, BG's was quite more intricate and difficult, for that matter. It's a good thing you enjoyed it, though. DA 2's combat is a bit more action-focused, though it still requires some degree of strategy and the pauses mid-combat to assess the situation and how to proceed.

LarryC wrote:

Actually, since I'm playing XCOM right now, I'm thinking that Dragon Age redone in turn-based XCOM-like squad tactics would be freakin' awesome.

This would be awesome, indeed!

Well, a year later, I'm starting playthrough #3 with a human noble rogue who'll be romancing Alistair. Maybe I'll go for queen as well? We'll see. This will also be the first playthrough where I plan on having Alistair pulling tank duty in my party for the majority of the game. Still keeping it on Normal difficulty. Maybe I'll save the eventual Hard playthrough for Mage/Mage/Mage/Rogue party one day.

Yeah. Love this game. Never seems to get old.

So one of the weird things about this game is that the combat encounters in sidequests frequently seem much more difficult than main quest dungeons or encounters. The random encounters in Ferelden might have you surrounded by wolves, or throw an orange Darkspawn Emissary at you. The Final Request sidequest in Denerim has you enter a room with three blood mages stationed at equal distances apart, as well as giving you three doors to go through. That encounter has given me trouble every single time I've played the game.

I don't mind, really. The challenge is nice (even at normal difficulty) and I know they toned down the difficulty after the game was released. It's just a curious thing that side quests are frequently where you have to prove your tactical RPG mettle rather than the main portions of the game.

It's fairly common, I'd say. Make sure everyone can finish the main game, make the really hard stuff optional.

Yeah, keeping the main quest line at a reasonable level of difficulty, and then providing more challenge for players who go look for it, is kind of a staple of the overall genre.

Consider Final Fantasy 7, for instance, which had a ton of extra content, at a fairly insane level of difficulty, if you decided to go find it.

I suppose I hadn't thought of it in that way because you don't have to go out of your way to find these side quests. They're dropped in front of you as if it's expected that most players will do them, as opposed to the crazy optional bosses in FF7 where you have to do a lot of work to unlock and then defeat them.

I just generally sucked at this game, so keep that in mind when I say that I thought the difficulty curve of this game was all over the bloody map. The first time I played it I wound up doing the forest elves section last and I just bulldozed my way through that after having done the Deep Roads. I get that it's classic RPG design so it's not really a knock against the game, but they did make some choices I find odd when it comes to signposting where you should heading next.

Well, I think all the zones are bracketed... that is, they have a minimum and a maximum level of difficulty, and will tune themselves as closely as they can to your character levels within their brackets. IIRC, the elf area is bracketed pretty low, and the Deep Roads are bracketed quite high. The Deep Roads were probably pretty difficult, if you tackled them early.

I think that applies to almost all the encounters, like the wolves on the road; the basic encounter is really wimpy, but they can scale up to be challenging into the early midgame. After that, you'll just stomp them, as their hardest bracket won't be tough enough to hurt you anymore.

beanman101283 wrote:

Well, a year later, I'm starting playthrough #3 with a human noble rogue who'll be romancing Alistair. Maybe I'll go for queen as well? We'll see. This will also be the first playthrough where I plan on having Alistair pulling tank duty in my party for the majority of the game. Still keeping it on Normal difficulty. Maybe I'll save the eventual Hard playthrough for Mage/Mage/Mage/Rogue party one day.

Ah yes, the classic mage/mage/mage/rogue party. It's just your standard highest DPS character in the game by far with her entourage of three folks that turn the battlefield in to a jungle gym of death for your enemies.

I highly recommend this style of play. The possible OPness is quite satisfying.

MojoBox wrote:

I just generally sucked at this game, so keep that in mind when I say that I thought the difficulty curve of this game was all over the bloody map. The first time I played it I wound up doing the forest elves section last and I just bulldozed my way through that after having done the Deep Roads. I get that it's classic RPG design so it's not really a knock against the game, but they did make some choices I find odd when it comes to signposting where you should heading next.

It definitely has some wild spikes. The Deep Roads in general is long, difficult, and exhausting. I seem to recall there only being a couple of chances to resupply during that grind.

Squee9 wrote:

Ah yes, the classic mage/mage/mage/rogue party. It's just your standard highest DPS character in the game by far with her entourage of three folks that turn the battlefield in to a jungle gym of death for your enemies.

I highly recommend this style of play. The possible OPness is quite satisfying.

After hearing for years how absurdly unbalanced it is, I'm looking forward to trying it out. I may go for the Battlemage build as well. Seems like a fun way to play the game.

If you want OP, go Arcane Warrior + Blood Mage and stack as many sustained defense spells as you can. Your mana pool will be nonexistent, but you will be nigh-invincible and you can just toggle on Blood Magic when you want to cast spells.

The DA:O mages reminded me a lot of D&D3E Clerics. They have great strengths, and eventually they get enough utility spells to cover all their weaknesses, and when power-gamed properly can outshine the supposed strengths of other classes. Who needs a warrior when your magic shields tank way better?

Hilariously Leliana still out damages these fools because the bow abilities in that game are silly. (Really? A move that stuns someone then the arrow breaks in to shards to bounce around to other enemies and stun them too? I loved it.) The base damage of the bow weapons are silly, and her bard abilities basically read: turn this on for free damage.

Damn this game is great. I gotta get out of this thread before I derail my other games with a DA:O playthrough. XD

I found the bow damage a real slow burner, felt weak for a long time, then middling but by two thirds of the way through Leliana was the uber damage dealing rock which i based my team on.

I was so unimpressed by archery in DA1 that I never did much with it. Never realized it ever got worthwhile. It was much better in the expansion, though, at least early on.

Arcane Warrior, on the other hand.... that build, played carefully, is more than a little ridiculous.

It's been a long time, but IIRC, you could act like a normal mage at first, and toss in the monster AOEs and big damage spells, and then toggle on your AW powers, losing most of your mana (which you'd spent anyway) and go to town with hand to hand. Especially combined with blood magic, it ended up being the all things to all people build. No matter what the situation was, the AW/blood mage had something strong on tap. Big damage, super tough, great utility spells.... by late game, that build was truly a juggernaut, almost obscenely destructive.

Which, of course, made it great fun.

Gah, reading this thread is making me want to play Dragon Age again. I'm already playing Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein simultaneously with a ME3 play-through half done and waiting in the wings, I don't have time for another 120 hour RPG D:

I always wanted to try the Arcane Warrior but never got far in to it. When I get around to DA:O again I think I'll do the AW/BM.

Yeah, I would actually play solo with my arcane warrior.

Brownypoints wrote:

I found the bow damage a real slow burner, felt weak for a long time, then middling but by two thirds of the way through Leliana was the uber damage dealing rock which i based my team on.

The thing was I'd occasionally find bows that would cause me to do a double take on its base damage. The thing is, I didn't even realize what was happening on my first playthrough until I checked the stats and Leliana was absolutely crushing my main guy (two handed fighter) in all the damage and kill stats.