2981

Does anyone really think DAO combat was all that good? Not me; I just think that DA2 combat is worse because of the spawns.

2982

Yes. Oh, there’s better RPG combat, for sure, particularly when one goes back to the era when people weren’t afraid of releasing games with turn-based combat, or one wanders over to indie RPGs like Helherron. But I’d call it the best combat a Bioware game has delivered since Baldur’s Gate II.

2983

The problem is attempting to micromanage your entire party in DA2 (i haven’t finished the game yet, but there is one boss i fought where you 100% need to micromanage your party) is similar to trying to rip your nails off using pliars with your mouth.

2984

According to the manual: “Once Hawke attains complete friendship or rivalry with a companion, a passive ability is unlocked in the companion’s personal school, and subsequent decisions no longer sway the companion’s opinion of Hawke.”

Did you notice that you lose the ability (i.e. that this is incorrect)?

2985

Keeping all characters selected when you unpause seems to minimize the cat-herding difficulties of followers running off to follow their tactics right after you told them to do something else. Feels a bit like a kludgey way to do things but it did work and wasn’t very hard.

2986

Key word there is ‘complete’. I haven’t reached that status with anyone yet, but have unlocked their friend/rival ability. So I believe you could have the friend ability, anger them royally over the next long stretch of the game and get the rival ability instead.

But once you do enough in one direction, it sticks instead.

Best way to fight allies’ running off to carry out generally good tactics, but really bad right now is just use that hold button in the bottom left. I like using it to position in a room I know the enemy will chase me into then letting them loose once they’re in range.

2987

I played it for 190 hours and it wasn’t for the story.

2988
  1. I’m pretty sure Steam adds in Awakenings to the DA:O playtime.

Best way to fight allies’ running off to carry out generally good tactics, but really bad right now is just use that hold button in the bottom left. I like using it to position in a room I know the enemy will chase me into then letting them loose once they’re in range.

IMO the “keep everyone selected” method is a bit more flexible, since you can give them move orders or melee attack orders and they’ll carry them out without any sudden changes of mind.

2989

So Hold temporarily disables all tactics, in addition to preventing the party from following the lead character? That’s good to know.

2990

They’ll continue to use tactics that can work, for instance archery shots or melee abilities if an appropriate enemy comes into range, but it will save your bacon from your party deciding to run into a swarm for no good reason.

There’s been a few times I wished there was the old BG2 option of disabling the AI completely, but it hasn’t been overly important. On that note I just passed 35 hours and believe I’ve finished every single thing I can do before moving on to the second chapter. Probably a few hours tacked on there from alt-tabbing to do other things, but still, not bad.

2991

Ah, so they’ll continue to use tactics but only those that won’t require them to move.

On that note I just passed 35 hours and believe I’ve finished every single thing I can do before moving on to the second chapter. Probably a few hours tacked on there from alt-tabbing to do other things, but still, not bad.

Excellent, sounds like the game is only slightly shorter than Origins.

2992

heh, I completed the game in 22 hours, by doing every single quest I came across ;-)

2993

What level were you when you beat the game? It took me 54 hours on nightmare and I’m usually not that slow at RPGs.

2994

I can check when I get home - I have no idea actually…levels werent interesting for me in the game for some reason.

2995

On normal I’m about 15 hours in and I’ve not even gone on the Deep Roads expedition yet. Still got half a dozen side quests to complete, I think.

2996

30 hours in on normal here and I’m in Act 3. I think I’m getting somewhat close to the end, but sidequests keep popping up.

2997

I’ve been fighting a lot of Shades, Rage Demons, etc, so I slotted spirit runes in my minion’s weapons and spirit ward runes in their armor (except Anders, who can’t use armor runes yet). I was assuming that demons would use spirit based attacks, and would also be vulnerable to that attack type. Is that correct, or are demons actually more resistant to spirit based attacks?

Something about Merrill seemed familiar to me, beyond the fact that she’s really working for Torchwood, and I decided it’s because she’s Liara with elf ears.

2998

If i remember right, spirit damage is less resisted than any magic types. I think the loading tip said damage/magical resistance is only half as effective against spirit damage.

I’d assume demons use different types of damage as it would be very surprising if a burning fire (well rage i think it was) demon didnt use fire.

2999

I finished the game last night at just under 44 hours total. I realize that you can finish it a lot sooner, but almost everyone else admits they skipped a lot of optional stuff.

3000

yeah, I know - and its kinda wierd… I’d admit it if I did, but sorry, didnt skip anything.

I wonder if something went wrong with the time on my savegames?