Dragon Age: Origins Catch-All

Every time I've played through I've played with more or less the same group of people (Alistair, Oghren, Morrigan, and a Mage character the first time; Alistair, Wynne, Leiliana, and my rogue the second). I probably should vary it up more but I haven't yet. The only time it really became a problem was --

Spoiler:

Like Kosars, at the end where you split your team and end up having to fight with the B-Listers for a section. Then I was pretty much hitting Auto-Level on everyone and learning as I went. I also relied heavily in that section on calling in the Armies and letting them take the brunt of the damage.

Vrikk wrote:

Bonus reward? Dude, I want my Memory Band back. Stupid Dwarven Noble glitch...

This may have been answered already, in the next couple hundred posts, but...

Save your game.
Exit to Main Menu.
Go to DLC.
Turn OFF the DLC that gives you that item.
Enter the game.
Save the game.
Re-exit.
Re-enable the DLC.
Bingo.

trueheart78 wrote:

If you do head to the Mages Circle, if upon inspecting a statue you have the option to attempt to remove a glass vial, don't. Just trust me on this one, ok?

Hah, I remembered reading this the moment I removed it. Total wipe, but made it the second try even though our tank went down fast. Level 8 party, don't think it would've been possible if I'd gone there right away.

Yon Rabbit wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

If you do head to the Mages Circle, if upon inspecting a statue you have the option to attempt to remove a glass vial, don't. Just trust me on this one, ok?

Hah, I remembered reading this the moment I removed it. Total wipe, but made it the second try even though our tank went down fast. Level 8 party, don't think it would've been possible if I'd gone there right away.

And just so you know, that isn't the only one of those vials. Watch out for phylactaries in Orzamar, for example.

Glad to know my warnings are headed

Yon Rabbit wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

If you do head to the Mages Circle, if upon inspecting a statue you have the option to attempt to remove a glass vial, don't. Just trust me on this one, ok?

Hah, I remembered reading this the moment I removed it. Total wipe, but made it the second try even though our tank went down fast. Level 8 party, don't think it would've been possible if I'd gone there right away.

Ditto. I'm level 11 and still haven't won. Going to give it another shot and see how I do.

I'm, maybe, 25 hours into it. Running with Alistair, Shale, and Wynne. Playing as a rogue and enjoying the backstabbing goodness. I have the tactics figured out so I can stalk around shifting in and out of stealth. Took me a long time to really get into the mechanics of the game. I think not having enough tactic slots to start the game initially hindered my opinion of it. On the 360 it's difficult to utilize (ie: fiddle) with all of your abilities.

Already thinking about who I'm going to run with on my next play through. Probably going to try a mage.

Alastair just had the conversation with Shale about how he was wondering if golems feel pain, and how they react. Alastair screaming like a little girl while in full Templar plate armor made the night for me.

tanstaafl wrote:
Yon Rabbit wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

If you do head to the Mages Circle, if upon inspecting a statue you have the option to attempt to remove a glass vial, don't. Just trust me on this one, ok?

Hah, I remembered reading this the moment I removed it. Total wipe, but made it the second try even though our tank went down fast. Level 8 party, don't think it would've been possible if I'd gone there right away.

And just so you know, that isn't the only one of those vials. Watch out for phylactaries in Orzamar, for example.

There's six of them in total. Off the top of my head, there's one in the Mage's Tower, one in the encounter where bandits trap you behind a gate in Denerim, one in the Deep Roads, one in the Royal Palace in Orzamar, and two in the elven ruins. There seems like there should be something about beating all of them, but if there is, I haven't found it yet.

One thing I've noticed is that Shale likes to talk...a lot. Don't think I've had a major plot conversation go by without it talking about crushing someone.

duckilama wrote:
Vrikk wrote:

Bonus reward? Dude, I want my Memory Band back. Stupid Dwarven Noble glitch...

This may have been answered already, in the next couple hundred posts, but...

Disabling & re-enabling the DLC works for everything except the Memory Band.

Steam sale has broken my self-control. Yup. Dropped it like 3rd period French. Look forward to joining the conversation...if a bit late.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:
Yon Rabbit wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

If you do head to the Mages Circle, if upon inspecting a statue you have the option to attempt to remove a glass vial, don't. Just trust me on this one, ok?

Hah, I remembered reading this the moment I removed it. Total wipe, but made it the second try even though our tank went down fast. Level 8 party, don't think it would've been possible if I'd gone there right away.

And just so you know, that isn't the only one of those vials. Watch out for phylactaries in Orzamar, for example.

There's six of them in total. Off the top of my head, there's one in the Mage's Tower, one in the encounter where bandits trap you behind a gate in Denerim, one in the Deep Roads, one in the Royal Palace in Orzamar, and two in the elven ruins. There seems like there should be something about beating all of them, but if there is, I haven't found it yet.

These remind me of those Liche's in Baldurs Gate 2 which always seemed to be hidden away in someone's wine cellar

Shale's Stone Aura power is amazing. It turns the rest of the party into ninja superheroes.

I had leveled up Shale taking the whole set of Stone Aura upgrades without really realizing what I was doing or realizing that Stone Aura immobilized Shale and took him out of combat. I was feeling a lot of buyer's remorse until I got to a particularly tough sequence with a revenant and another nearby tough bit with an ogre surrounded by a whole passel of darkspawn. In both battles, my party was just getting brutalized, and it looked like I would have to consume maybe a couple dozen health potions to get through.

In desperation, I tried turning on Stone Aura. Thirty seconds later, my buyer's remorse was completely gone.

Well bummer. I don't even know what the Memory Band is, then. I wonder if Bioware foresaw this issue or if it caught them offguard...

On another note, I am loving the combat but hating this thread... I am so far behind everyone - including my wife- that I am semi-scared to read it.

p.s. Typing on a Kindle is not veyr fun.

duckilama wrote:

On another note, I am loving the combat but hating this thread... I am so far behind everyone - including my wife- that I am semi-scared to read it.

Don't be intimidated, the best part about DA is that you can enjoy it at your own pace. (I, for one, am very glad that there are no MP component to this game, and I am not skipping quest logs, conversations just so that I level faster. ) And with the vast amount of possible things that could happen in the game, any spoiler that you read will likely just make you want to play more. It is one thing to read a spoiler, but it is another to actually play through the "spoiled" event. (There aren't too many big spoilers in this thread anyway.)

I took my sweet time playing DA:O while also playing Borderlands. And even when I play most of the time, I end up just sitting there talking to NPCs and trying out different companion combo and talk to NPCs again. If the game was programmed to play inter-party conversations on a "idle timer" then I would honestly never finish the game, since I will just sit there and listen all the time...

lethial wrote:

Don't be intimidated, the best part about DA is that you can enjoy it at your own pace.

Very true. Don't be scared off, duckilama. I've been in on this thread since the first post, and there are people who have finished the game twice already, while I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it. I play a bunch of different games, and I've never been the type to gorge on a single game (Batman a recent exception).

I'm enjoying DA so much I want to savor it, and don't want it to end.

duckilama wrote:

On another note, I am loving the combat but hating this thread... I am so far behind everyone - including my wife- that I am semi-scared to read it.

You're probably ahead of me. I haven't had a lot of concentrated time to play, and chose to spend my first three play sessions working through three of the different introductory sequences (dwarf commoner, human noble, and mage) before electing to move forward with my mage. I followed all the hints to head toward Redcliffe to begin, and next time I play, I'll be seeing what happens after sunset. (Thus my complaint about Morrigan last night. She thinks I'm wasting my time.)

The thread I've been avoiding is the Dragon Age spoilers thread, which has been taunting me with 500+ unread messages.

duckilama wrote:

Well bummer. I don't even know what the Memory Band is, then. I wonder if Bioware foresaw this issue or if it caught them offguard...

On another note, I am loving the combat but hating this thread... I am so far behind everyone - including my wife- that I am semi-scared to read it.

p.s. Typing on a Kindle is not veyr fun.

The Memory Band was a special item you got that gives the wearer an extra one percent experience. During the Dwarven Noble starting story, you lose everything. Apparently there's a chest that gives you all your stuff back, but I never saw it so I lost all my things.

Anyway, reloading the DLC content gives you everything but the Memory Band back. Bioware has confirmed that this is a problem.

I too concurr to don't worry about knowing everything and racing around. I'm taking it slow, trying to take every side-quest and just enjoying the large environment of this game. My codex is really getting large and I have only read a bit of it. I so love how it tracks quests, things you meet and the last conversation made. Just truly wonderfully helpful aspects to keep one in the loop. Especially for those like me can only play once and awhile and to have aids in helping one remember is great. About everything you have or see is explained in one spot or another. So just look around your menus and you'll no doubt spot the one that will look like the one you need to look in. Combat is a great. And the 'tactical menus' are really a spot on aspect for group play of a single player game. A very clever way to get your NPC's to do what you would like them to. Most excellent. As far as I can tell, this game was very thought out in all aspects. (nothing is perfect, but this, imho, is very, very well done rpg game).

I've just seen the battle start at Ostagar, and I have to say it's one of the best not-pre-rendered cinematic scenes I've seen on a computer (really, well done Bioware), you see the phrase 'cinematic' kicked around a lot in regards to gaming, but this is the best I remember. And afterwards when you're crossing the bridge you can still see all the little details, you can look off into the distance, see dozens of men fighting below you. Even though it doesn't directly affect your gameplay, it does make you feel like you're in the same world as those men fighting.

Scratched wrote:

I've just seen the battle start at Ostagar, and I have to say it's one of the best not-pre-rendered cinematic scenes I've seen on a computer (really, well done Bioware), you see the phrase 'cinematic' kicked around a lot in regards to gaming, but this is the best I remember. And afterwards when you're crossing the bridge you can still see all the little details, you can look off into the distance, see dozens of men fighting below you. Even though it doesn't directly affect your gameplay, it does make you feel like you're in the same world as those men fighting.

That is a nice scene. It would probably have had more impact for me though if it hadn't been the first piece of flippin' video footage they release back when they started promoting Dragon Age properly (though I guess I'm partly complicit in that since I didn't have to push the play button :P)

It's certainly a big improvement over Obsidian's "siege" at Crossroads Keep in NWN2.

stevenmack wrote:

It would probably have had more impact for me though if it hadn't been the first piece of flippin' video footage they release back when they started promoting Dragon Age properly

I have a feeling that the trailer footage was a bit cut down from what's in the game, they probably wanted to get on with showing people swinging swords about at nasty darkspawn.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Deadron wrote:

Oh, and may I say the camp was a brilliant invention? Dunno if they did this first, but it is SO MUCH BETTER than the BG sleep mechanic, and really does make for a nice break and good place to sell, etc.

I agree. The only complaint I have is borne from my own lethargy. I wish my strongbox was relocated there, as I don't like going to Soldier's Peak to retrieve things.

That said, I found that despite all the hullabaloo about paying for storage space, I didn't use it very much. I mainly used it for storing gifts for characters I hadn't gotten yet.

http://social.bioware.com/project/463/

There are others, but that one is bare bones and more than sufficient.

duckilama wrote:

Well bummer. I don't even know what the Memory Band is, then. I wonder if Bioware foresaw this issue or if it caught them offguard...

On another note, I am loving the combat but hating this thread... I am so far behind everyone - including my wife- that I am semi-scared to read it.

p.s. Typing on a Kindle is not veyr fun.

I am only 15 hours into the game and am having lots of fun. As others have said. Enjoy it at your own pace.

Jeff-66:

In which universe can you finish DAO with a Rogue solo? In this one, of course. Combat Stealth breaks ALL aggro on you. It's basically Invulnerability Mode as long as you don't attack with a weapon.

Everything stacks. Towards the middle of the game, I usually have a pile of numbers six or 7 high going every time I score a normal hit with a Warrior. It's gotten such that it's VERY inadvisable for me to actually use Talents like Assault when a normal attack could score me twice the damage in the same amount of time.

Tip: Give everyone one point in Poison. Bombs are seriously fantastic in this game. Like, seriously. On Normal, two or three bombs focusing on an enemy's elemental weakness can get rid of most of the HP of an Elite unit and two will kill most normals - multiple ones if you get them in a nice clump for the blast radius (hint: use Taunt).

On Difficulty Spikes:

Normal on the PC is easy. These are the parts of the game you must play well in order to cruise:

1. You must build your character in a more-or-less optimized manner. Auto-leveling will make combats significantly more difficult than they should be - at least worth a difficulty level more. Every little point doesn't count - you can waste a few here and there, but you have to hit recommended skills and talents.

2. Change up the Tactics in order to work with how your character and Party works.

3. Do not rush through combat without tactical work. You can opt out of pausing the game every couple seconds for most combats, but you will need direct tactical control of a Mage at the very least, if you want to win easily.

The Secrets of Winning:

Area Effect. Crowd Control.

Lock down enemies. Do massive damage to lots of enemies at once. Be unfair. Use the power-talents.

What talents are strong?

Shield Bash, Shield Pummel - locks out a single target for a short duration, plus damage. Always good to apply, unless target is near death, in which case damage dealing takes precedence.

Two Handed Sweep - mass knockdown plus damage. Fantastic for attracting aggro.

Mighty Blow - knocks down a target, does lots of damage.

Slam, Killing Blow - Knocks back a target, deals decent damage, shatters frozen targets.

Critical Strike, Critical Shot - does decent damage, but save it for shattering frozen targets. If no CoC, Focus Fire mass damage powers.

Force Line - every spell in this line is fantastic. Mind Blast stuns a good clump of foes and does not attact aggro to your Mage. Force Field is possibly the most unfair spell in the game, since it does not break AI aggro. This essentially means that once you've nailed aggro to a single individual, you can Force Field him and expect to continue to attract aggro until you kill everything. Heck, land a Fireball on him - he's Immune to it now. Lob 6 Grenades in quick succession, put down Storm of the Century. It's Easy on a Stick. Telekinetic Weapons is fantastic for penetrating armor and later in the game, everything pretty much has decent armor. Crushing Prison locks down targets without rendering them immune to attack, and, in fact, damages them continuously, too. Two Crushing Prison Talents and the entire Force Line on two Party Mages makes most battles trivial.

Sleep, Fireball, Earthquake, Blizzard - these are very large, long distance crowd control. They are NOT for locking down large masses of peeps. They're for locking down selective numbers of peeps so that they trickle to your killzone one at a time. One or two resisting a spell at a time is fantastic - it's exactly what you want. For Sleep, wake them up one at a time with a ranged attack. That said, if you manage to lock them all down, well, might as well put down a Tempest or Inferno, yeah?

Speaking of Tempest, Tempest, Inferno, and Blizzard are the singlemost unfair spells in the PC version. You can cast these spells past doors and walls. If you have high Survival skill, you can detect mobs well before they see you, then use those spells to kill them before they even see you. Stay in one room, trap the entrance with Glyphs and Traps, then proceed to Storm the bejeezus out of everything. No tactics required. Cast spell - win. Best combined with debilitating spell or effect of choice. For Inferno, I suggest a Grease effect (trap or spell) or (better) Earthquake, since you can also cast that without Line of Sight. Tempest and Blizzard go together, natch.

Lock 'em down, kill 'em fast. For ambushes and surprise attacks, go fast and heavy with the CC. Sleep at a ranged section, fireball the other ranged section. Meanwhile, the Warriors Taunt the melee mooks, then War Cry (with Superiority) or Two Handed Sweep. Lock down Elites with Force Field or Prison, then go to work, killing the weakest Health enemies one at a time. Alternatively, Mindblast to Shock, then CoC combined with 3 or 4 Bombs will kill pretty much any normal Encounter.

CptGlanton:

This is no game to play on a console. Seriously, don't. You're lucky you're on a 360 - the PS3 one stutters worse. I'm on a medium range PC and my framerate ranges from upper 20s to high 40s/ low 50s. It's pretty smooth, really.

As for art direction - that's a matter of taste. I liked the plate armors, but the light and mediums I didn't care for. Character designs are pretty generic. Lightning and fire effects are passable. Facial and character animation is squarely in Uncanny Valley - very distracting. That said, the detail in the game and the way it looks is consistently fantastic played from an isometric perspective. The 360 version suffers because it's forced into first-person view all the time where the inconsistent texture work is most obvious, and then it's additionally burdened with bad framerate and muddy textures. Why you bought a 360 version of a Baldur's Gate game is beyond me.

Writing in the game is about on par with other Bioware efforts. Seriously, play Mass Effect again and don't look at the TV. The dialog is painful. You were blinded by the visuals in ME, and DOA isn't as pretty of a game on the 360 so you notice the audio faults more. In terms of replayability and variability, DOA is undoubtedly the better game. Even the AVN-play is better in DOA because more of your decisions have far-reaching and game-changing ramifications. You CAN lose your main Mage gun right in the middle of the game if you can't see eye-to-eye, for instance.

ME does not, in fact, "ooze style." Flying cars, laser guns, telepathic aliens - all been, there, done that. Armor design in uninspired. Krogans are generic bully-alien design. And they clip atrociously. Gun design is unbelievably bland. In contrast, weapon design and Finishing Moves in DOA are far more stylish. The armor's definitely better. Environment-wise, ME's rooms and corridors are quite plain generic sci-fi crap. Ditto for ships. I found the ship designs in Star Trek more interesting. In terms of spaces, one place is just about the same as any other. It's a little hard to tell whether you're in a ship or in a facility, or which facility, for that matter. It's all quite samey.

In DOA, you can easily tell you're underground, in a dwarven ruin or in a Darkspawn tunnel. You can even see cobwebs when Spiders lurk, or Deepstalkers stalking you just outside weapons range. Ortan Thaig looks different from Cadash Thaig, which looks different from Aeducan Thaig.

Topside, the south Marshes have a feel and design unique to them only. The Brecilian Forest looks nothing like it, and neither does the forest south of Denerim. Elven ruins don't look like Tevinter ruins, which don't look like Dwarven ruins.

The Royal Palace in Orzammar as a distinct, but Dwarven look. Contrast that to Cousland Estate or Howe Estate or Redcliffe.

There's a ton of style there, certainly, (comparatively speaking, anyway) but I think your poor textures are blinding you to it.

Difficulty is about right, but then again, I am a veteran of these games, so I find them pretty simple. It is definitely a gamer's game. ME was a cakewalk, with any class, on Insanity. DOA offers a bit more to bite off.

DOA isn't a super-masterpiece by any means. It's not a Mario game - but let's not compare it to ME.

You might want to remember that not all of us are PC Gamers or have gaming PCs. The 360 version isn't that bad. Not perfect but its solid. Anyone that doesn't have a decent PC shouldn't be scared off the 360 version (well, assuming they have a 360).

And as far as Mass Effect Vs. Dragon Age... I'm not falling for that bait. I liked both equally well. And both have their own failings because they rely a bit too heavily on some pretty f*cked-out tropes of genre fiction. I probably like Mass Effect's story a touch more because I am incredibly tired of High Fantasy Games based around tired High Fantasy novels.

But BioWare managed to at least take the f*cked-out bits and make them into a entertaining blend of homage and pastiche. It was fun going, "Oh HEY! This is the part they cribbed from Game of Thrones! And, oh hey, they liked the Lord of the Rings movies too!" And then you have things like the Morrigan storyline which I think is actually pretty subtle, tragic, and original for a RPG.

Personally I'd like to see more things like Morrigan's story in Dragon Age 2 (and in RPGs in general) and less of the Save the World (Again) from the Orcs (Again) lead by the Great Evil/Sauron/Others (Again).

I'm just now watching Farscape and the fact that one of the main characters is the voice of Morrigan (and looks a lot like her) is really throwing me off.

I imagine it was the opposite for most.

Agreed on that. The entire darkspawn threat was seriously yawn-inducing. However, the self-contained plot lines in the army quests were much more interesting, with some different takes on fantasy cliches.

Also agreed on LarryC's tactical analysis. Having a mage with certain spell lines (or maybe 2) completely changes battles. Not agreeing on Mass Effect dislike. That game was awesome with some sweet style. Expanding/compacting guns > stupid phasers on stun.

Am I the only one finding that your starting characters have the best stories, and therefore you care about them a whole lot more than the rest of the smucks you get later on in your adventures? I am of course talking about Alastair and his fun family plot as the game progresses, and Morrigan and her f-ed up family tree. Both of them are incredibly fun, but beyond that... meh. Shale's is pretty cool because he is an apathetic golem who finds the prospect of death amusing. Also, his hatred of pigeons still makes me laugh.

bnpederson wrote:

I'm just now watching Farscape and the fact that one of the main characters is the voice of Morrigan (and looks a lot like her) is really throwing me off.

I imagine it was the opposite for most.

Her DA character is her Farscape character almost exactly:

-Unusual childhood

-Difficulties adjusting to emotions and relationships

-Often impatient with hero

-Very casual views regarding sex

-Vicious, but coherent morality

-sh*tty mother

-And one that's a big spoiler for both game and series, so I just won't share it.

As one of those freaks that bombarded CNN when Farscape was canceled, I like it.