Oh, I agree 100%; it’s just flat-out stupid.
Like merryprankster, I also played the game on 360, but now I’ve bought the Ultimate edition on the Steam sale. I didn’t have too many problems activating the DLC through the Bioware social site though. It was a bit confusing at first, but once I remembered my passwords, everything went smoothly.
First impressions: Oh man, this game is boring the second time around. The first thing I did on the 360 version was to play through all the Origin stories to find out which one I wanted to play through the whole game with. So now I’m playing as someone different (Noble Dwarf Rogue instead of Human Mage), but I’ve already played through this part, and it’s excruciatingly tedious. I thought I’d change up the dialog and make different choices, but it seems like choosing different dialog options this time around usually ends up with the same conversations overall so far; it doesn’t really change much.
I can’t wait to finally get to the main part of the game where I can get the DLC character in my party that I didn’t have in the 360 version (named Shale, I believe?). At least then, I won’t be doing parts of the game that I’ve already done.
First impressions on combat in the PC version: Meh. So this is what all the hubbub was about? So far it seems the same as combat on the 360 version except I can zoom out further. I still can’t believe that I can’t queue commands. That made KOTOR’s combat system so much better. Console vs PC doesn’t matter. In KOTOR’s system, you just switch to the party member you want while the game is paused, and queue up what you want them to do. Like Buff, Attack, Heal. Then the next character, Buff, special attack, other special attack. And so on. You could queue up all the commands at the beginning of combat and then make changes later if things didn’t go according to plan. In Dragon Age, you have to give commands one at a time and it’s tedious, in both PC and console, in comparison to KOTOR. I don’t really see how being able to zoom out helps out the situation all that much. It’s not as if I didn’t have okay situational awareness in the 360 version at all times anyway.
Human Blood Mage or whatever is pretty awesome from what I remember. Sac health > receive mana > lock everything down > kill it with fire. Then get healed up and repeat the process!
There’s one spell combo that lets you basically paralyze everything, and it is the most awesome thing ever. Group of enemy casters? Lock em all down and focus on the melee!
You can also use the same spell to create a big explosion, which ends up being super hilarious.
Unfortunately the rest of the combos are pretty much ass, and they’re definitely not things that follow organically from play. Some mods add more, but they basically change magic from difficult but rewarding to a giant MAGE == I WIN BUTTON, so that sucks.
I downloaded a tactics increasing mod so that I wouldn’t have to micro my duders so freaking much and it was without a doubt the best decision I have ever made. I went from having to manage everything and swear at them to setting up a bunch of scripts and occasionally moving them around to a more advantageous location.
I enjoyed the game a good bit, but large parts of it felt like length for the sake of being long. I also wiped the dragon with basically zero effort by just moving my duders around and pinging it with ranged attacks. Well, that and fire. The sloth demon guy was funny, but if I remember right the game basically refilled your bars every time you took damage. So I’d fire off everything, transform, and then repeat the process again.
I got burned out right before starting the Dwarf related stuff. Just felt like areas were super long for the sake of being super long when they could have just shortened it and made it more fun.
I am still digging it. I have about 70+ hours, which is 3 or 4 times longer than I have spent on anything (outside of MMORPGs) in a decade. I now have all four of the factions behind me and have finished most of the side quests and DLC quests…I think.
There are parts that are a bit slow, but when I sit down to play just a bit it is usually 2 or 3 hours later when I force myself to shut it down.
I have been playing on normal and it has been just right difficulty for me. Sometimes challenging and sometimes not.
I did finally drop to easy for the Branka fight. I think I must have had bad supporting characters. Also, with my main character as a dual weilder and Branka’s old man as a 2-hander, I had Leiliana (sp?) and Morganna (Sp?) along. I think that combo just wasn’t viable with no tank-y character against the mobs you have to deal with.
I just have not wanted to put in the time to get the tactics ironed out. I still have most of the presets on and most unaltered. There are empty ones that I am not utilizing. I mostly pause and issue commands maybe 80% of the time.
Oh and I am playing the Caste-less Dwarf.
If you’re playing manually you might as well disable tactics, or else just keep a few “convenience” ones like having people turn on persistant auras that sometimes get toggled off during transitions.
I did fiddle a bit, so I mostly have a couple of auras and a go to ability or two that I know I will use early in a fight anyway.
How do I get my mage from switching to arcane warrior? Since she picked that up, it seems like she’ll just switch whenever the hell she feels like it. Maybe there is a trigger for it I am missing.
Disable tactics altogether works fine for mages imo. There’s nothing like “threaten” where you might actually get into trouble if it switches off and you don’t notice.
This is how I usually handled it for mages, besides I liked spells such as Cone of Cold which require careful placement (ie - not AI-driven). I didn’t disable their tactics entirely, but just left them with basic auto-attack modes and then survival instructions like making sure they’d quaff potions at the appropriate times and such. For an arcane warrior that keeps wanting to draw his or her sword, just disable/remove the auto attack options.
So I realize I’m two years LTTP on this one, but I’ve finally gotten around to it and I’m about 25-30 hours in. I usually play short casters of one sort or another, so I thought I’d change up for DA and make a Dalish rogue.
I’m more or less making a bow ranger, although I haven’t unlocked the ranger specialty yet.
I’m finding this really tough going. My party is Sten, Morrigan, and my dog, and we’re trying to get the Dalish on our side. I’m now in the ruins and just getting mobbed by skeletons and undead. I just came to a room that’s loaded with traps and I have no way of seeing them or disabling them.
As an experiment, I went toe to to with a skeleton archer (since the rest of my party was dead and I could maneuver to where he was the only monster I pulled.) I beat him, but only had 1/4 of my health left. I’m dependent on potions for health, as I have no healer, so the other 4 or 5 skeletons were going to make mincemeat of my archer.
Have I borked my party? Should I go all the way back to town (now 3 maps away) to switch out and get the rogue woman to disable the traps? I’ve been making Morrigan into an offensive mage, figuring a healer would come along eventually, should I have given her just the basic healing spell?
I’m around 6-7 level. Maybe I should go to one of the other races and try there? Do the monsters adapt to my level, or have I just wandered into a section that’s over my head?
You’ve hit two major unbalanced parts of the game that some people were unlucky to encounter before consensus was established: archery is weak in the Origins base game, and you’ll do a lot better with a healer.
Someone will come along to pick at that, but I’m getting a bad case of deja vu from your post. I’d spoil yourself enough to find out which area has the healer, then go there. It’s better than being frustrated.
Looks like this is free on Origins, for anyone who didn’t already have it.
Wondering if anyone knows how to manage this. I had the original collectors edition, expansion, numerous DLC, etc, but when I get the free Origins on Origin, it “updates” my install but doesn’t note that I have all the other components. I tried putting in one of the DA:Origin CE codes, but it just says the code is already used (yes, by me). Any thoughts how to get everything in Origin?
I don’t understand. I fyou have the collectors edition, expansion, DLC… how are you trying to redeem the normal version?
Yeah, not clear. I have physical CE copy of DA:Origins bought before Origin existed. When I purchased Awakenings, DLC, etc, they still weren’t Origin. Now, I redeemed the free DA:Origins but Origin doesn’t think I have any of the expansions and DLC. Wondering how it can be made to know that I don’t have to buy all that stuff again is all.
Or your original keys from the physical version could redeem on Origin (did you try?), or they couldn’t. If they couldn’t, no, there is no way to redeem them, all or just a few.
If they could, you didn’t need the free version, you could have redeemed your own key.
They make you manually download and install all that crap from Bioware’s site anyway as far as I know.
IMPORTANT! Pull up your Services on your PC. Look for one called Dragon Age: Origins Updater. Make sure it has “Automatic” listed under Startup Type. If not, right-click it and change it from there. Also, make sure that you have DA:O set to run as admin.
After reading this, I decided not to get DA: Origins for free on Origin. After all, I already own the complete edition on Steam. So maybe owning it on Origin as well will interfere with the game knowing that I own all the DLC. Better leave well enough alone. I don’t need to own it on two platforms.
A Bioware employee even tried to help me but I recently could not get all the DLC I had “bought” in the old system once upon a time to appear in Origin. :/ The part that started out on the social.bioware.com never ever fully registered properly with my Origin account with the same email address despite applying several different DLC codes and keys.
Yeah, I’ve had so many troubles with the social bioware site, their registration, and being offline at times that I hated the game for a while. Every single time I tried starting the game, it either woulnd’t connect, didn’t think I bought any DLC’s, or just failed to load the Mass Effect Armor so poor Alistair went around naked.