2881

Merill’s not too bad either, though I agree, she’s a scaredy cat. Still, even lacking the subtlety, she’s interesting just because she’s the exact opposite of Morrigan who is over confident, cocky, and a bit of an asshole. It’s probably intentional.

Still, the worst thing about Merill is seeing the heart icon pop up in conversations with her. Talk about creepy, who’s the pedo over at Bioware?

It’s funny, my group is Aveline, Isabela, and Merrill and their idle banter feels a bit like a sitcom, “Two and a half women”

2882

Yeah, I noticed a ton of those reserved skills for her, and I think we’re meant to stance dance. I end up using one defensive and the aggro reserved abilities, while also using (as much as I can) the environment to make sure enemies encounter her first.

I’m going to have to start dumping points into willpower though soon as she can use taunt once or twice during any given fight (and maybe something else). Though not all fights require her to tank so I get to use some of her other abilities too.

2883

My group is usually Varric, Anders, and Fenris. Lots of bickering and brooding and snarky asides.

I went down the Rivalry path with Merrill and she’s kicked me out of her house like 5 times now. It never fails to make me laugh.

2884

My group is usually Varric, Anders, and Fenris. Lots of bickering and brooding and snarky asides.

I went down the Rivalry path with Merrill and she’s kicked me out of her house like 5 times now. It never fails to make me laugh.

2885

That was my group as well. Anders and Fenris are natural foils with Verric to stir the pot. I ran with Averline and Merrill through Merrill’s story which was worth it to hear Averline relentlessly mock Merrill’s stupidity.

2886

the best ones are with Merril/Ander/Fenris…

especially on the quest to help Merril with the mirrors, Ander is basically telling Merril how stupid it is to trust a demon and how she will regret playing around with blood magic.

Then Fenris jump in and point out that ander is a hypocrite because ander is abomination!!!

2887

This RPS article is pretty much in line with my thinking.

I’m in Act 3, however, and my opinion hasn’t improved.

2888

I accidentally closed off Fenris’s story so he will be waiting in the mage’s house happily ever after.

Running with Anders, Isabel and Varric. I pissed off the elf girl, don’t care about the noble bow guy and Aveline is too busy being squad leader for the town guard.

2889

Shrug I completely disagree with that assessment. I’m really enjoying the new conversations, and being flippant when I want to is kinda fun, actually. Brings a little spice to the dialog tree.

Plus, I thought the opening was pretty emotionally affecting.

Different strokes, I guess.

2890

For those finding that Aveline causes poor damage, toss on some +acc items. Otherwise they’ll be glancing blows causing only a portion of the possible damage. With higher damage, she’s more of a threat and will be able to hold aggro better.

I’m with Mordrak, running on hard and having Aveline, Isabela, and Merrill (substituting in the occasional Varric for Isablea) as my main squad with myself as another mage and no dedicated healer. Restoration potions ahoy! The evolving relationship between Aveline and Isabela has been quite a highlight for me. The banter between the two is a joy, not to mention the awesome cutscene interjections. I’m still giggling over the “split hairs” one.

2891

One thing I love about taking Varric along is conversational options where I basically turn to Varric and say “hey, Varric, lie for me please.”

2892

(shrug) Can’t really do much when I recommend DAO and DA2 as games to play and they go “I’m going to go download it.” PC gamers spend money on the hardware and the games are “free.” That’s another thread entirely, but just bitching. Then same person goes “it’s too bad PC games are dying.”

2893

Sounds like you might want to reconsider your social circles. That’ s not the case with mine.

2894

I’ve tried really hard, but on the companion subject, I have only liked Varric and Aveline.

Varric is just a fun, trustworthy companion so far, and I like his little quips and story telling hints. It shocks me that he being an author and “bard” of some sort, that Bioware didn’t at least include a lengthy sequence of drinking around a table and doing nothing but getting some funny stories out of him. All this cinematic stuff, and we never get to squeeze him for some stories?

Aveline, is a stick in the mud, but I like her character and her goals.

The rest seem to be a bunch of sadsack whiners I just don’t want to listen to anymore. There really needs to be an OOC option on that conversation wheel…I am only helping your sorry whiny self because I might get treasures and an extra level up.

Really though, I’ve burned out on the game about 1/2 though act 2. THe constant wave fights while novel at first, have now just became WTF another wave? Really?

2895

I get neurotic about having to choose my party, as I don’t want to miss any potentially awesome character-related material.

Not realizing there were potential three-person exchanges, I feel extra-tweaked.

What sort of technology would allow us to maintain a full party for the purposes of interaction?

2896

I kept hoping that if I had Anders and Merrill in my party long enough that one of them would notice that HAWKE IS A BLOOD MAGE!!!1!!eleven!

But no. It goes like this:

[A group of enemy blood mages becomes visible]
Anders: Oh no! Blood mages! We must kill them for their hateful blood magic!

HAWKE: [slitting his own wrists repeatedly] BLRARRAAA BLOOD BLOOD DEMONS DEMONS BLOOD BLOOD

ANDERS: Good work killing those blood mages, Hawke. I know I can trust you to hate their blood magic just as much as I do.

[Another group of blood mages teleports down from the Starship Enterprise]

MERRILL: I will use my blood magic to fight!

ANDERS: No, stop. Blood magic is bad!

HAWKE: [slit] BLOOD BLOODITY BLOOD BLOOD BLEEDING BLOOD

ANDERS: See, Hawke fixed it for us by casting a spell that ripped everyone’s viscera out in a fountain of morally righteous but coincidentally blood-themed magic. You should be like Hawke.

MERRILL: I’m so lonely because nobody else in the party likes my blood magic.

Likewise, nobody comments if Hawke trains as a spirit healer and joins himself to a spirit from the Fade, even though the entire point of Anders’ story arc is that putting a spirit in your head is a big frickin’ deal.

2897

Me too. That’s one of the reasons Varric is a constant in my party.

2898

I saw there was a beta patch for some technical issues - do we expect any of the design ideas to be tweaked in patches? Wave frequency/position, bloodsplosions, anything?

2899

Not likely, it took Bioware 5 months to fix that fact that putting points into dexterity to use Dexteirty weapons, didn’t actually raised the damage on said weapons.

Also Bioware didn’t do a single patch that didn’t coincide with a paid DLC release. So no, I don’t expect any patches for gameplay. This game is what you get, and a few patches shoved with DLC a few months down the road.

They definitely won’t patch out the waves combat, that would mean having to take the care they should have in the first place, to design some nice set pieice encounters.

2900

That doesn’t sound like the bioware releasing gameplay patches for neverwinter years after it was released :(