Dragon Age: Origins Catch-All

SpyNavy wrote:

Tactics so far for me -
Everyone lead off with bows - the rogue should be stealthed to get that auto-crit. Fire until enemy has closed the range. Depending on the attackers - take your strongest fighter and go after the toughest enemy with one other melee type. If you have ranged bad guys still in the fight send at least one fighter type or your "pet" to occupy them until you have cleaned up the melee types. What I have seen so far (Darkspawn fights) were 6-7 DS's which included 2-3 melee and 3-4 bowmen and this tactic worked phenomenally. Your main has to be careful because the bowmen seem to zone in my main so every one in awhile you'll need to be quick on a heal potion. I havent had a caster yet in my party I am still playing the initial "become a grey Warden - human noble" quest line, but this has seemed to work well. Alistar FTW when it comes to great dialogue.

Yeah, the combat in the intro (origin story + joining the Gray Wardens) does not prepare you for the real combat. I breezed through 3 different origin stories and joining without ever losing anyone (maybe 1 redshirt fell once and came back with a broken body part). I was feeling pretty good. Then in the first real fight after the Joining (at the tower shown in the Giant Bomb video) I had everyone knocked out and get back up with injuries except my main character. That was just the yard trash! Holy moly man! I doubt I have enough potions and kits for this. I probably need to spend some time refining everyone's AI tactics, too. Didn't need to yet, but obviously I need to look now.

I am loving the game, but the other thing that's bothering me is that I have no idea what I'm doing with stats. With this being a brand new ruleset, and the manual being skimpy, and the tooltips ambiguous (seriously, the tooltips for trap-making and deft hands do not mention anything about them being necessary for disarming traps or picking locks, I don't think), and no log or rules console, it's hard to know what stats/skills/talents are needed to be good at your role. When I mentioned this on the official forum, a Biowarian responded that if you wanted to know what stats/skills/talents did, you needed to buy the Prima guide. What? Come on guys, you used to give us big 200 page spiral bound manuals that explained this stuff (and that was for a system that was already published and well known!). Now I am expected to fork out another $20-40 just to know how the ruleset works? I was reasonably ok with the $7 for Warden's Keep on day 1 (I bought it, after all), but I think this is over the line. I'll go quietly fume in the corner and play my game, and wait for someone to post all the information on gamefaqs, I guess.

You know how when a temporary party member leaves the group you get back any items you equipped him with? Not if your inventory is full

muttonchop wrote:

You know how when a temporary party member leaves the group you get back any items you equipped him with? Not if your inventory is full :(

Ooh, good thing to note, bad way for it to work.

Bullion Cube wrote:

Piece of advice, buy empty flasks, and keep em on you. I did run out of potions and while I had the other ingredients, the lack of flasks kept me from making more. Made it much more difficult.

You: Oh god there's so much blood! I need a potion... quick, make me a potion!
Healer: No.
You: But.. but I'm dying! Hurry!
Healer: We're out of flasks.
You: Fl... what!? Mix it in my freaking mouth if you have to!
Healer: No, it must be a flask! I only work with flasks!
You: I told you guys not to smash the flask after drinking the potion inside!

LobsterMobster wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Piece of advice, buy empty flasks, and keep em on you. I did run out of potions and while I had the other ingredients, the lack of flasks kept me from making more. Made it much more difficult.

You: Oh god there's so much blood! I need a potion... quick, make me a potion!
Healer: No.
You: But.. but I'm dying! Hurry!
Healer: We're out of flasks.
You: Fl... what!? Mix it in my freaking mouth if you have to!
Healer: No, it must be a flask! I only work with flasks!
You: I told you guys not to smash the flask after drinking the potion inside!

It's like a drinking game! See how many empty poultices you can smash on your forehead before you pass out!

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:
farley3k wrote:

I said before that it looked like Kotor on the consoles and after playing the 360 version for a couple hours...it is kotor in a fantasy setting. Combat feels the same, specials feel the same, heck even the skills seem similar. I don't mind because I loved Kotor. Now I just hope the story is as gripping.

Same feeling here except for one thing. I liked how in KOTOR you could pause the action and have your party members queue up 4 or 5 actions. I haven't even tried playing other characters because I'm too lazy to keep switching characters to do different attacks.

I miss that too. Scripts help a bit where you can tell the AI what to do in certain situations but I like Kotor a bit better.

Soooo... I'm planning on going with Hard difficulty for my first playthrough.
Is that a bit suicidal or doable?

Slacker1913 wrote:

Soooo... I'm planning on going with Hard difficulty for my first playthrough.
Is that a bit suicidal or doable?

Depends if you're on PC or console. If you're playing on the PC, it might depend on how much you like being a masochist. The general consensus on the console version is that the game is easier.

Slacker1913 wrote:

Soooo... I'm planning on going with Hard difficulty for my first playthrough.
Is that a bit suicidal or doable?

I've been doing hard. It's tough, but possible. I fly through health pots though.

Khoram wrote:

I am loving the game, but the other thing that's bothering me is that I have no idea what I'm doing with stats. With this being a brand new ruleset, and the manual being skimpy, and the tooltips ambiguous (seriously, the tooltips for trap-making and deft hands do not mention anything about them being necessary for disarming traps or picking locks, I don't think), and no log or rules console, it's hard to know what stats/skills/talents are needed to be good at your role. When I mentioned this on the official forum, a Biowarian responded that if you wanted to know what stats/skills/talents did, you needed to buy the Prima guide. What? Come on guys, you used to give us big 200 page spiral bound manuals that explained this stuff (and that was for a system that was already published and well known!). Now I am expected to fork out another $20-40 just to know how the ruleset works? I was reasonably ok with the $7 for Warden's Keep on day 1 (I bought it, after all), but I think this is over the line. I'll go quietly fume in the corner and play my game, and wait for someone to post all the information on gamefaqs, I guess.

Hey I'm responding to myself to say, check this out: apparently it's Dragon Age: The Missing Manual, by one of the game designers.

Khoram wrote:

Hey I'm responding to myself to say, check this out: apparently it's Dragon Age: The Missing Manual, by one of the game designers.

Good sir, you deserve a pint of beer.

Kerplunk wrote:
Slacker1913 wrote:

Soooo... I'm planning on going with Hard difficulty for my first playthrough.
Is that a bit suicidal or doable?

Depends if you're on PC or console. If you're playing on the PC, it might depend on how much you like being a masochist. The general consensus on the console version is that the game is easier.

I'm on PC and I'm a sucker for punishment.

Tkyl wrote:

I've been doing hard. It's tough, but possible. I fly through health pots though.

Hard it is then. Thanks.

muttonchop wrote:

You know how when a temporary party member leaves the group you get back any items you equipped him with? Not if your inventory is full :(

To add to that a bit of an additional technical spoiler: after the game teaches you that your party members will return their equipment to you, the game pulls a coup de grace after the first real mission (lighting the tower). Whatever you give to your non-permanent party members will be gone. Even if it's your DLC items. I repeat, if you equip your temporary henchmen during the tower mission with equipment, the equipment will be gone at the end. On a positive note, there is a window of opportunity between the final boss and the ending of the mission where you can strip them bare.

sheared wrote:

Are the PC players with experience with older-school Bioware games finding the high up perspective (basically the Baldur's Gate look) to be incredibly restrictive? It frustrates me to no end to have my characters stop moving due to an encounter, but me not being able to move the field of view enough to get the creatures spotted on screen. I have to unpause the action and let people start running towards each other before I can see the bad guys. This basically means if far enough away, I cannot begin my strategy until the monsters get first move."

This may be deliberate. One criticism levelled at BG 1 was that you could game the encounters by creeping up to the edge of a group of enemies awareness/attack range and then attack them with missiles or spells. In BG2 I had the sense that they tried to counter this by having enemies waiting just the other side of doors, etc. The restricted camera may be a flawed attempt to fix that earlier problem.

Higgledy wrote:
sheared wrote:

Are the PC players with experience with older-school Bioware games finding the high up perspective (basically the Baldur's Gate look) to be incredibly restrictive? It frustrates me to no end to have my characters stop moving due to an encounter, but me not being able to move the field of view enough to get the creatures spotted on screen. I have to unpause the action and let people start running towards each other before I can see the bad guys. This basically means if far enough away, I cannot begin my strategy until the monsters get first move."

This may be deliberate. One criticism levelled at BG 1 was that you could game the encounters by creeping up to the edge of a group of enemies awareness/attack range and then attack them with missiles or spells. In BG2 I had the sense that they tried to counter this by having enemies waiting just the other side of doors, etc. The restricted camera may be a flawed attempt to fix that earlier problem.

Nah, that still works in this game. I've done that twice now before realizing that I was actually doing it. I would see a darkspawn at the edge of my vision (3P view) and would start shooting at him. He would either rush me or shoot back. Once I killed him I'd walk forward a bit only to agro a couple more guys that were a mere couple feet from the first.

So after my overnight with the Impulse ticket and my 24 hour wait on a response from my EA live chat escalation I get this in my email:

Subject
EA Chat

Discussion Thread
Response (EARepryan)
11/05/2009 08:18 AM
Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts regarding Dragon Age: Origins.

We've received reports of some users being unable to authenticate/verify their digitally downloaded copies of Dragon Age: Origins. Rest assured that we are aware of this issue and, while it appears to be more prevalent with copies purchased from third-party retailers (Steam, Direct2Drive, etc. & not EADM), we are investigating a solution for all our affected users.

We know you're anxious to play, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this issue might cause. Please refer to the following FAQ article for the most up-to-date developments on this issue:

http://help.dragonage.com/cgi-bin/ea...

You may also utilize our ‘Notify Me’ function to make sure you are notified of the latest developments.

Thank you again for your continued patience. If there is anything else we can assist you with, please update this incident, or visit us on the web at http://help.dragonage.com.

Regards,
Ryan
EA Online Support

This is downright hilarious, considering Shoal07 managed to get a new key generated (even though it was for EA's own download service) while on the phone. Instead, I get no ETA. It also stated if I didn't respond to the response within 6 days they'd consider the issue solved.

Try holding the middle mouse button down (mousewheel) then scroll around the battlefield. I was able to look further ahead of my party this way.

Tkyl wrote:

Nah, that still works in this game. I've done that twice now before realizing that I was actually doing it. I would see a darkspawn at the edge of my vision (3P view) and would start shooting at him. He would either rush me or shoot back. Once I killed him I'd walk forward a bit only to agro a couple more guys that were a mere couple feet from the first.

Hey, if they are going to artificially restrict a group out to save the entire world to just 4 people, then I call that artificiality "tactical brilliance"!

One note on that Missing Manual thing I just linked - very much a work in progress. Lots not filled in yet. However, definitely check out the Weapon info page, some good stuff there. Also it mentions a bug to be fixed in the first patch - apparently daggers are using 100% strength attr right now, when they are supposed to use 50% str and 50% dex. Other good stuff, like axes and mauls give over 100% str as bonus to damage, although exactly what the numbers or bonus is it doesn't say. I guess just that they give more, relative to other weapons. Geez man, see? This is what I'm talking about. How much of a difference in the bonus is this? How is the bonus calculated, exactly? Are we talking 1 or 2 points, or 5, or 15? No idea. And weapon speeds; are these in seconds? What? Who knows! Thanks Bioware!

It may not be complete yet, but that site is a great find Khoram. Thanks!

Two handed weapons, likely your axes and mauls, give 150% strength damage. Axes also generally give larger armor penetration bonuses, which increases the damage you do against armored opponents. This may be the bonus that you're refering to, and is given as a stat on the weapon itself.

I like the idea of the damage computation system here. Armor reduces the damage you take on a point by point basis, but you can influence the armor effect on a point by point basis by equiping armor penetrating weapons.

Edit - All of that was from the actual manual that shipped with the game. A link to download it was posted right before the original DA: O thread was locked.

So I purchased the game on Steam last night, downloaded and installed in less than 2 hours. No issues at all. I didn't pay for any additional content so no headaches there. I started playing without logging in, then saw the login button while the game was paused, logged in with the account I made back when the character creator came out and had no issues.

So far it has told me it's saving screenshots and uploading them, but when I go to my community page the screenshots page is blank. The stats/skills pages work great though.

This game is ridiculously difficult.

Malor wrote:

This game is ridiculously difficult.

How so? And are you playing on PC or console?

I'm with Malor. PC is kicking my ass. Ranged attacks are killing me, and my guys go down in health pretty quick. However, the more I tweak, the better I do, so I guess I'll have to be more hands on.

mrwynd wrote:

So far it has told me it's saving screenshots and uploading them, but when I go to my community page the screenshots page is blank. The stats/skills pages work great though.

On your character sheet, if you click the button that says something like "Heroic Achievements", it shows you a bunch of stuff you've done, and I think shows the pictures it's taken. When you look at them, it asks if you want to delete or upload. I think it doesn't upload automatically, but gives you the choice for whatever you think are the best ones.

Bullion Cube wrote:
Malor wrote:

This game is ridiculously difficult.

How so? And are you playing on PC or console?

The PC version on Normal is definitely no Torchlight on Normal. You've gotta use proper placement of characters, good control of your abilities and keep plenty of health potions on your belt. I've already had encounters where my group of 4 got wiped because I charged in, then when I redo the encounter I manage to win without using a single health potion.

So far I've had to deal with a lot of archers. I like to send in my Warrior, then run away to get the archers to move forward then CHAARGE before they start shooting again. Move the rogue(s) to the back of the targets. Then I'll have each character with a stun ability use it on a different enemy. Then make all four attack one enemy. Often times after I've killed one or two there will be a caster or archer further away, I'll send my rogue over and stun them then run back and backstab my warrior's target.

Every fight is a f*cking epic struggle. I'm currently stuck at:

Spoiler:

a revenant in the courtyard of Radcliffe Castle

and there is absolutely no way my characters can beat this guy. They can't HIT him. My 'tank' can't control him, so he destroys the party one by one, and there is absolutely nothing I can f*cking do about it.

The MMO axiom of pulling enemies works wonderful to help with packs of ranged guys. Tell 3 of your party members to hold position. Send someone with a ranged attack to pull the enemies to you.

Cover also helps eliminate advantages ranged enemies have. It's easier to do indoors but doable outdoors as well. Have your party hide behind a boulder/hill and let the enemy come to you.

I am a mage specializing in glyphs and lightning so far and the glyphs help ENORMOUSLY with crowd control.

Spoiler:

I have even accidentally found one of the "combining spell effects" with glyphs that was pretty damn useful.

Crowd control!! Learn it, love it, live it.

edit : put an additional point about glyphs in spoiler tags just in case.

Khoram wrote:
mrwynd wrote:

So far it has told me it's saving screenshots and uploading them, but when I go to my community page the screenshots page is blank. The stats/skills pages work great though.

On your character sheet, if you click the button that says something like "Heroic Achievements", it shows you a bunch of stuff you've done, and I think shows the pictures it's taken. When you look at them, it asks if you want to delete or upload. I think it doesn't upload automatically, but gives you the choice for whatever you think are the best ones.

hit ESC and go to the Player Profile option. This shows all your achievements and screenshots. You can choose screenshots to upload from there.

Kerplunk wrote:
Slacker1913 wrote:

Soooo... I'm planning on going with Hard difficulty for my first playthrough.
Is that a bit suicidal or doable?

Depends if you're on PC or console. If you're playing on the PC, it might depend on how much you like being a masochist. The general consensus on the console version is that the game is easier.

It's pretty tough on Hard on xbox - I regularly have 2 or 3 party members go down during the SPECTRE quest, and there are areas I simply gave up on trying to clear before I "finished" the area.

There seems to be a lot of background tactical math going on, but I didn't bother to read the manual on the assumption that all console-game manuals are trash. So I try to flank everything I can, and constantly seem to lose my "auto-attack" while moving. It's obnoxious.

Took me a couple hours to figure out how to "quick-swap" weapons, despite my controller having 30 buttons there was obviously no need for a dedicated way to swap weapons.