Dragon Age

[Blindhamsterman]

heh, I'll be back, just not for a short while now, I had to do a wipe of my computer and lost all the files for ALFA along with my installation, I made a point of completing DAO purely to get it out of my system (I felt like an addict) now I need to focus on getting 2 Assignments done and some revision for Data Analysis tests in a week *bad times*

as an aside, I checked and my bad, I did indeed do 75%+ of the quests

Mags, your build sounds somewhat similar to my own, I spent most of the time with Shimmering shield, combat magic, spell shield, arcane shield, stone armour and flame weapons active myself. still if you choose the right gear/armour you'll find you can cast plenty (I generally get a mass heal a couple of the storm spells and a fireball out of my mana before it expires and I need a potion)

[Magile]

Mags, your build sounds somewhat similar to my own, I spent most of the time with Shimmering shield, combat magic, spell shield, arcane shield, stone armour and flame weapons active myself. still if you choose the right gear/armour you'll find you can cast plenty (I generally get a mass heal a couple of the storm spells and a fireball out of my mana before it expires and I need a potion)

I think we play it a bit differently. My Arcane Warrior is currently level 12 and wields a two-handed sword. He generally starts with just Telekinetic Weapon on Sustained, and as the fight progresses he starts switching out for Combat Magic, Rock Armor, Arcane shield, etc. I only have Heal on him, so he tosses that out and lowers his mana before he starts going sustained -- often throwing a Paralysis or Crushing Prison to take out a few on the way. I've been working down the talent tree to get Haste for him, so we'll see how that goes next level.

At level 11, he "tanked"

Spoiler:

Flemeth

for the entire fight... after Alistair died within the first 10 seconds. Blood Dragon Plate (not including helm) and other items really give him the survivability, and Wynne just tossed heals and Heroic Defense on him as he held her in place and whittled her down. A lot of survivability with all of the sustained auras/abilities on him, although his health is still an issue (hence why I'll be going Shapeshifter, for the Con and Armor bonuses).

[Swift]

reading the patch notes it simply made easy easier, didnt change the others I thought. Either way I played it on Hard and am now doing it on Nightmare.

Easy got easier, Normal got a bit better balanced by slightly upping player stats which better smoothed out the difficulty. Whereas before you could wipe the floor with people and then suddenly your next regular fight would see you get owned, its smoothed out quite a bit now (Revenants excluded).

Due to a couple of bugs, the next patch is going to make Hard and Nightmare even harder. Currently bows do less damage than they would like, and since enemies use exactly the same systems as players in the game, any change to increase player damage with bows increases NPC damage with bows. They are going to tone down the NPC ranged damage for Easy and Normal (making an archer a fully viable option) while leaving the extra NPC damage in the game for Hard and Nightmare.

I find packs of enemies that include alot of archers to be a pain in the ass if you have not got an AoE mage with you.

[fluffmonster]

I find packs of enemies that include alot of archers to be a pain in the ass if you have not got an AoE mage with you.

Grease + fireball works admirably on those mobs.

[Magile]

Arcane Warrior + Blood Mage = Broken

The moment they hit level 14 and gain access to Shimmering Shield, their survivability just shoots up to god-tier. Once my AW/BM hits 16, I know I could probably solo the rest of the game with him. He's beastly and tanks everything, so I run with Leliana, Morrigan and Wynne now.

Broken mechanics aside, I've been dabbling with game add-ons for the past little while. The only "major" one I've used is "Behold the Raven", a "re specialization" mod that essentially lets you, or your companion, drink a potion and become level 1 again, being able to distribute stats and talents to your choosing up to their current level (all in one go). I've done it to remove useless talents from Morrigan and Leliana, as well as tweak their character stats (only gives them the points they should have). Otherwise, it's all be aesthetic mods, such as changing the looks of Morrigan, Leliana, gore-effects, etc.

[Vendrin]

I just use a mod that gives them white teeth, and lets you level up your allies from level 1 when you get them.

[Heero]

I am loving it.

[kiyoti]

i feel like this is what NWN2 would have (should have) looked and played like if BIOWARE made it. voice talent, story, music/sound effects are all great! i hear there's a toolset as well? online worlds perhaps?

[Vendrin]

Toolset yes. Multiplayer capability no.

[DMyles]

The gaming store I usually go to had a used copy for ps3 so I picked it up for 45$. It has some improvements over nwn1 and 2 but as a console game it doesn't really stack up with other current games like Assassins creed 2 or drakes adventure 2. I found the party controls to be cumbersome. I wish you could tell party members where to stand to get them out of the way of spells.

The only thing that is really new is the origin stories. It really doesn't seem that different from mass effect or knights of the old republic for that matter only with different costumes. I wish bioware would focus on making a game that plays like Mount and Blade, a very fun game if you haven't tried it although a little old, instead they keep throwing crap at us.

I think the best game lately has been jade empire. I would love to see a jade empire 2

[Swift]

I found the party controls to be cumbersome. I wish you could tell party members where to stand to get them out of the way of spells.

You can, at least on the PC version, though you have to change the party to stand still, and then you send them where you need to. Its a little round about but it works. And anyone could tell you the interface works far better on a PC than a console. Its just a symptom of the much more limited controller.

[Vaelahr]

I couldn't begin to play it on my PC.... I assume the PC version is superior to the console due to mod availability..... or no?

[Electryc]

PC version is better to play. With a consule, you have those clunky controller buttons. Still the consule versions are getting high marks. The mods I think will be slow to churn out. Im currious if anyone with NWN2 toolset experiance here is messing around with the dragon age toolset.

I'm currently playing a mage. Paralyze, and the Mass Paralyze are my favorite spells.

[Arkan Bladesinger]

Still doing the first play-through as Human noble berserker/champion, but nearing the end. Even though I really really love the game, don´t think I´m gonna replay it very soon. Just takes way too much time (which in itself shows it´s money´s worth, but anyway)and not sure it´d be that different, Origin stories perhaps excluded.

If I had to nitpick about something I´d kinda prefer NWN style quickslot bar(s!) over DAO´s and not having to destroy items instead of dropping them to chests. (Bought Warden´s Keep, so the latter isn´t that big a problem, but the dungeons tend to get so huge that even with several backpacks always end up having to destroy some stuff, which then vanishes into ether forever and most of the time gold has been an issue...)

Still, best game I´ve played in long while and very addictive.

[Rotku]

So when you coming back to join us in game, Arkan?

Nice to see you still around!