1641

Grah, that’s annoying.

So, is there an easy way to keep people focused on one target, AND use their skills? Or is it just a case of

Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 1
Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 2
Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 3

etc, enumerating every skill I want them to use?

1642

Shift-click portraits and right-click maybe? That’s what I do when I want something to go down fast initially.

1643

Here’s what I do. My first melee command is to attack nearest, then my melee skills are all set up for enemy target at short range. This lets my melee guys handle things pretty well on their own if I’m busy. If I want them on a specific target, I select it with them and they’ll stay on it on their own until it’s dead.

I have also tried things like putting melee guys on mages or Elite+ enemies or whatever in Tactics, but I found they were a lot more manageable when I just had them attack nearest and manually targeted when I wanted them on someone specific.

For my casters, I have the healing spells in as tactics for allies (self healing is a poultice for all at <25% just as a catch-all), and single-target damage spells are also mostly tactics. AOE’s and things like Glyphs I target myself. I have tried setting mages up as assisting the tank, but I found it got to fiddly when I wanted them to lock something else down, so I just manually put them on a target.

I may try setting mages to autoattack the lowest health enemy, which I think could work pretty well…

1644

If you set up tactics to attack what you are attacking, they will use their skills if the target matches the conditions. For example, if you have a tactic set for your rogue to use Deadly Strike against high-armored targets, the rogue will use that if the target you are attacking has high armor.

1645

New DLC due out today, according to release dates over at IGN. Anyone have it yet? Any early impressions? I’m expecting more Warden’s Keep level stuff, but it might be nice if we got something at least somewhat substantial.

1646

Not sure what IGN is saying, but on the stickied thread about the “Return to Ostagar” DLC it seems they have announced that it will be released Jan. 5. So, that’s next week.

1647

Ah. That’s not nearly as exciting as it being released today.

Oh well.

1648

What? So you’re saying that if I have tactics set up like

Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 1
Enemy -> Making melee attack -> Dirty Fighting

then the character will only use Dirty Fighting on the monster I’m fighting? They won’t run off to use Dirty Fighting on any other monster that might be making a melee attack as well?

1649

I’m kind of missing Guild Wars. In that game, you can set up your NPCs with whatever chosen skills, and just leave them to it. They know how to heal, nuke, snare and interrupt, sometimes better than a human player. Focusing fire is just a matter of pressing Ctrl-space to call whoever you’re attacking, and they instantly target it (and sometimes you don’t even have to bother, because by default they’ll attack your target anyway). A lot of skills also have cooldowns of 5-10 sec, or less, so you’re rarely waiting for things to recharge.

1650

Apparently there are rumors about a full-scale expansion coming in March, noted here at the usually reliable Blues News.

In summary:

  • title is Dragon Age: The Awakening
  • offers 15 hours of gameplay
  • takes place after the events of the game
  • you play a completely new character with a new/different origin

If true, that means they are thinking things differently on the DLC then they earlier indicated.

1651

Sounds cool. I have no interest in mini-expansions for the main story but I’d buy an entirely new story.

1652

For what now?

Edit: Aw man. I’m going to give Sarkus the benefit of the doubt that he cut and pasted from a press release or an enthusiast site or something and didn’t add that part in himself.

1653

I think that’s just a spoiler. No worries.

1654

It’s quite possible that they will change targets. They do that a lot even when simply autoattacking after you’ve assigned a target for them. I was responding to your list of tactics:

Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 1
Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 2
Enemy -> Target of controlled character -> skill 3

–which would use a lot of skills probably not appropriate for the target.

1655

They’ve delayed the next DLC, which was supposed to be out today.

We’re sorry but the planned Return to Ostagar downloadable content scheduled to launch on January 5th has been delayed for all platforms. We will update you as new information becomes available.

1656

But announced Awakening for March. And yeah, saw the other thread.

1657

We’ll have Mass Effect 2 in the interim.

1658

It’s really quite awesome that they have decided to delay this DLC. It means that there is a very good chance I won’t buy it as I will have finished the game before it comes out. Much like I have never played Bring Down the Sky because I finished Mass Effect a good month or more before they finally released that for PC despite promising it would be bundled. :P

1659

True, but the alternative would be that they’d never use those skills, right?

1660

You can run into situations were you rarely see a target that meets the condition. For example:

Self -> Any -> Dueling
Self -> Being attacked by melee -> Dirty Fighting
Enemy -> Target has low armor -> Flurry
Enemy -> Target has med/high armor -> Deadly Strike
OR
Self -> Any -> Dueling
Self -> Being attacked by melee -> Dirty Fighting
Enemy -> Target has med/high armor -> Deadly Strike
Enemy -> Nearest visible -> Flurry

Since Deadly Strike gains a bonus to armor penetration but does only normal damage, it would be a waste of stamina on a cloth-wearing target. You might be fighting only mages for some stretches, and so would not see Deadly strike for a while; but there’s no reason to want to see it then either.

If one sets it up to use every ability on each target, the rogue will be autoattacking only before long, and then only repeating the first ability in the list for which it has stamina as stamina recharges.