1661

Recall that I was originally asking about how to make people focus fire. The replies were that simply leaving things to the AI would cause everyone to split up, which would not be very good. So, how do I set things up so that the AI will focus fire and also use skills appropriately?

1662

Play a different game.

1663

Since I did my targeting manually, I don’t know. My reply was to point out the problem in your suggested tactics. Sorry that wasn’t clear.

1664

Finally finished it after 97 hours. Not sure how I feel about it. The DLC bugged out on me, so 80% through the game items started disappearing from my inventory and I no longer had access to my item cache. My romance with Leliana got bugged and never progressed. This pissed me off enormously. I love the romances in Bioware games (usually – when they don’t suck). I kept thinking I had to wait with Leliana. Then, as I entered the final dungeon in the game it became clear that something was very wrong. It may be stupid, but the romances play a big part of the game for me, and I missed out on it because of a bug.

I was never happy with their RPG system. I’m a huge fan of D&D 3.5, and their system isn’t nearly as good. It’s too “MMO” like, which is unnecessary in a single player game. The tooltips give no solid information about what a power really does, so you’re left guessing. On top of that, many abilities have negative effects. What fun is that? And again, you have little idea how the benefits of a power may outweigh its disadvantages.

Tied into their RPG system, the loot system was convoluted as well. It was far too difficult to determine when item A was better than item B (well, more difficult than it should have been). Unlike D&D, there’s no such thing as a simple +1 weapon. Every item contributes fatigue – which is “bad” but in ways that aren’t explicitly spelled out. Better armor gives you better protection, but also more fatigue. So it often wasn’t exactly clear what was or wasn’t an upgrade. This would probably be fine for an MMO. But in a single player game, I just want to have fun. Analyzing this stuff does not increase the fun quotient. There were also “light”, “medium”, and “heavy” armors. I could never figure out what the purpose of “medium” armor was, so I just sold it all. This is an indication of design failure.

I found the combat to be unfulfilling, especially considering how much of it there is. The game is absolutely massive, but it doesn’t need to be at all. They could easily have reduced the size of each dungeon by 25-50% without losing any of the experience. Even at the very end of the game, just when you think it’s all over – they throw another dungeon at you.

Part of the reason I felt the combat was unfulfilling was probably because I was playing a “DPS” warrior. I needed a rogue (sigh), a tank, and a healer. The healer had to heal 100% of the time, which meant I couldn’t use all those cool spell effects and combos. If I replay the game, I will definitely play as a mage.

There are mods available that address some of these concerns. And I may replay the game, some day. Ideally after they release a few more patches.

1665

Fatigue was crystal clear to me. The combat system does not spell out every detail but I don’t know how you could possibly not understand how fatigue works. It’s fundamental to the combat system, too, so no surprise you didn’t like the combat if you didn’t understand fatigue!

1666

Fatigue just increases your stamina/mana use as a direct percentage of the mana cost of a spell, no?

Although I’ll admit the game does a terrible job of telling you how big a portion of your mana/stamina a spell will take.

1667

I found that when it comes to DPS warriors, a dual-wield build was way more fun than a 2-handed build. Not only does the former do more DPS, but it also hits a lot more often – the 2H war might only get one attack on a target before it goes down. It’s frustrating to see a big chunk of your attacks whiff because the target dies between the time you start the swing and the time it lands.

1668

…and massive armor, heh.

I have to say, I enjoyed the loot system a hell of a lot more when I played the game pre-release, before all of the extra “bonus” items and DLC-introduced items were thrown into the game.

When I initially played Dragon Age, it was relatively low magic and getting a special set of items (like the Drake armor upgrades) had a significant impact on the game - but now the game is overloaded with powerful magic items, which is both less challenging and less interesting (since there’s a diminished sense of achievement for nabbing a really useful item), and in my 3rd playthrough I’m spending/wasting a lot more time fussing with items. I realize some people love “loot” games, but I just find that stuff an annoying timesink, which I’d prefer to be consigned to action/RPG games like Diablo/Titan Quest. I guess MMOs have also made an overwhelming amount of loot an integral part of those games too.

1669

I agree with the first part of your paragraph. I think much of the DLC loot is overpowered and too good to let go, thereby making the regular stuff boring in comparison.

As for your second complaint, I seem to remember a lot of loot in Baldur’s Gate, BG 2, and NWN. I don’t think MMOs had that much influence on DA’s loot.

1670

D&D 3.5 sucked. Bioware’s real-time version of D&D3.5 sucked even more. This system is better, it just lacked tooltips and documentation, especially on spells and abilities, and needs a little bit more balancing on a few things. (Bows for instance, two-handed weapons also seemed a bit iffy)

You don’t really need a Rogue, there basically just for chests (mods are available for a bash/spell option to opening them btw), taking a healer is subjective, if you want to babysit your offensive mage, against most things they are very effective, i’ve gone through areas without a healer. A tank is needed for the bosses mostly, at least against the ones that resist all mages spells =)

So far the only dungeon area I found too long was orzammar’s deep dungeon, and mostly because you aren’t allowed to camp down there, so i’d rack up injuries or want to swap party members but couldn’t.

1671

Not BG1. Fair enough on the other 2, however.

1672

I gotta agree with this, although I went with the rogue DW route instead of the warrior. After I got the 2nd rogue party member, I replaced my two handed Qunari warrior and the kill speed went through the rough as my two DW rogues work in tandem.

The best thing that the 2H warrior had going for him was the very large armor penetration of his huge maul, which was great for Revenants. I may still have to bring him along just to deal with those, actually. My rogue may as well be wielding wet noodles against Revs with their ridiculously high armor values.

1673

I don’t know if it’s enough, but daggers have higher penetration.

1674

Fatigue is bad, and big fatigue is worser than small fatigue. Using abilities eats fatigue.

That’s about all I understand about fatigue.

1675

Well, a cunning dagger rogue has high penetration I think. Unfortunately I went in with the dream of having a high-strength rogue duel wielding two powerful medium weapons, kind of like a combat rogue in WoW. Apparently this is the lowest DPS build possible, and I’m guessing it’s because of Cunning’s modifier to armor penetration.

Kind of a shame, really, although the high strength lets me wear good armor as well as use some of the more powerful one handed weapons (Axameter, baby!)

1676

It’s not stupid at all, it’s one of the reasons why I’m such a big Bioware fan, the rest of the party is as much a part of the game as the questing and loot. I restarted Baldur’s Gate II when the infamously unreliable Jaheira romance broke on me. Romances are the kind of investment I need to care about the people besides me.

I just wish Bioware would find some middle ground with NPC interactions, it used to be all driven by the NPC and now it’s all driven by the player. On top of that they’ve gone and done the Japanese RPG adventure/social divide where area X is for questing and area Y is for talking, something that BG2 didn’t (mostly).

Certainly DA is a (baby) step in the right direction from Mass Effect though for NPC-to-NPC dialogue. I just wish there was more depth to it, back in BG2 you had so many combinations of party members and some of them could result in terrible fall outs or even romance between NPCs, yet in their games since then I feel like the party members barely even see each other and when they do it doesn’t feel like their relationship is growing in any way.

I admit that I haven’t finish DA yet so perhaps that happens, but I want to see more depth to it to make up for the small number of NPCs.

1677

You should do that, you’ve played as the most boring class in the game.

1678

not sure why you think mage is the most boring class in the game…

1679

I meant the 2H warrior that he did play as. He should play again as a mage.

1680

You’re confusing two separate things: fatigue is a modifier to the cost of your abilities. The abilities themselves consume stamina (if you’re a warrior or rogue, mana if you’re a mage).