1941

Obsidian is still an independent dev studio that has yet to sell out to a publisher, least of all Sega.

That said, Obsidian was indeed founded by ex-Black Isle vets. Their connection with BioWare was from the Black Isle days, when Black Isle helped BioWare (the smaller fish at the time) produce the Baldur’s Gate series. This past partnership undoubtedly led to Obsidian working with them to develop KOTOR2 and NWN2. BioWare wasn’t owned by EA at that time…

1942

Aha - right you are. I remember H = hold, as a toggle (so I’ll start using it!). Thank you Fugitive for the help!

1943

The hold-unhold behavior can be a bit glitchy sometimes IIRC. If your party doesn’t resume following you even though you’re hitting hold-unhold, just select all and move them manually for a bit, it’ll fix itself without having to exit/reload.

1944

Thanks Jason - I was wondering if something wonky was going on (i.e. I was using the H key sporadically, or at least thinking about it, but not noticing it was working, but now that I know its purpose, probably it will work fine when I need it). I’ll check it out when I get home tonite…

My plan is to play through the rest of the DLC and move on to Awakenings. Yes, I know, I am getting burned a bit by paying for DLC, but it’s a good way to get re-oriented to the gameplay, and as a completionist, I can’t hardly not do the DLC vignettes!

I was thinking ahead a bit - I enjoyed a lot of the NPC conversations so I really want the party following me around when not in battle (I already had a few conversations take place when I had left the rest of the party in some other rooms which was definitely not helping it seem like a smoothly flowing experience!).

1945

Well, that doesn’t usually happen - I find the glitchiness only came up during dungeon crawls when I’d be using hold to set up combat positions, so that it was being toggled on and off a lot, and sometimes it just wouldn’t seem to “take” when I turned follow back on. I don’t recall it ever happening in towns, unless I happened to manually turn follow off and forget about it.

Re: burnout: I burned out hard in the middle of Awakenings, but I’d played something like 3 playthroughs of the base game plus doing each of the origin stories at least once, so it was a pretty massive total of hours by that point. I also enjoyed DA:2 a lot, although opinion on this forum was mixed at best.

1946

Yeah, I’m not sure what might have caused me to throw Sega’s name in there four months ago … but thanks for letting me know I screwed up, anyway ;)

1947

I got problems, and they kept me up until 2AM this morning and in a funk. I hate it when PC games don’t run right and affect my mental state!

Having done a fair amount of research (albeit with glazed eyes), there are big time troubles with DLC. Apologies if this has been covered up thread, but I was doing my research elsewhere since this is a dated issue which, apparently, EA and Bioware never got their shit together about, leaving the PC gamer pimped as usual. I shouldn’t have to invest four or five hours (or more) figuring this shit out, but apparently I will have to if I want to continue on.

Here’s my issue. I should say I am running Vista and that I purchased DAO through Steam. I installed Witch Hunt DLC when I started playing the game again last week (probably weekend before last week). All my previously installed DLC was there, downloaded and installed and working fine. So was Witch Hunt, I probably got about 2/3 of the way through it.

Last night, when I went to play, it said the Witch Hunt module was missing (so were all the other DLC modules). When I dl’d it again, all the modules will go to 100% installed, and then extract, but they then fail when they install.

I’m wondering if I am really patched up right, through various means I have determined I have the 1.04 version. But in looking at the download screen, where Witch Hunt is shown, the 1.04 shows up in Red. I’ll see if I can repatch it through Steam when I get home from work.

I know there are a bunch of threads, either on Steam or Bioware forums which have very convoluted methods of checking to see if the DAO Launch Updater is installed, working, etc and I have been trying to work through those with no luck yet.

I just thought I would ask here too to see if anybody had the specific trouble I am having (which is basically that all DLC dowloads to 100%, extracts, but then fails on the installation). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I might just give up on DLC and move on to Awakenings (to see if I have trouble with that too). I’d like to keep my original character from DAO for importing into the DLC or to Awakenings, if possible, but if there is a fix for this whole shebang that involves uninstalling from Steam, and reinstalling and being able to then play the DLC, etc. with a new, levelled up character, I would be alright with that too.

Thanks in advance for any help! [I wanted to say it is probably my own doing for playing this stuff long after I finished DAO, but, that’s bullshit, this stuff should work more easily and not require me to be a frikikin’ IT specialist!]

1948

Drawing I did a while back.

1949

Is that Dany?

1950

It’s supposed to be Morrigan.

1951

Still reading the thread as I just got a PC that would run Dragon Age. Got the Ultimate Complete addition for whatever the ridiculously low Steam Sale Price was. $10? Looks like I have a shitload of gaming if I can successfully stick with it.

The quote above has already solved some of the hand wringing I was doing as to whether I was not “getting it”. The whole tactics system seems like a terrific idea, but too complicated for me to understand and/or is broken. I will go back and read more in the thread for sure.

I have not gotten into an RPG in years and years and truly had a real RPG experience. Probably since Baldur’s Gate. I have gotten to I loathe cut scenes and dialog and reading lore. The cut scenes and interaction are so well done and make me anxious to hear more and see what happens next. I am trying to pause and read all the stuff that comes up in the Codex. However, I always have one eye sort of on my clock to see how much I can squeeze in until it is only ONE hour past when I need to be in bed. I think I have around 8 hours in and I just joined up with the well-cleaveged witch chick (EDIT: Ah, Morrigan. It is right above me. I typed this up after quoting from page 60 or so). I am anticipating the progression of the story more so than I am the combat. Unheard of!

1952

Man, I really LOVED the tactics system. I was a huge fan of FF12 and this was a nice evolution from that system, I felt. But to each his own.

1953

I may just need more time. After reading more of the thread, I also may have jumped on the easy way out of shutting it off and micromanaging. The options are a tad overwhelming. The heal option under 25% was a no brainer though.

1954

The tactics work fine on lower difficulty levels, IMHO, but play styles also vary.

1955

I printed out the manual at work. I forget they make those. If I am more familiar with the rest, the Tactics may become more clear.

Sometimes the pathing is jacked up in this game on what appears to be pretty easy routes for my allies. Also, targeting is hard on some obstructed baddies that are damaging me even when I change the view. Those have been my two biggest frustrations. I am playing on Normal with a Dual Wielding Dwarf Warrior. The castless one. I am actually trying to role play, but it is difficult when you know more than the character does in some situations and then have to stick to The Role.

1956

It doesn’t work well on the highest difficulty, but that because nothing but meta cheese really works at that difficulty.

If you don’t use the Advanced [party/tactics/stuff] mods, the tactics system is too basic. It works, but only slightly better than the default AI scripts for BG2. So you won’t be saved much micro at all.

On the other hand, if you do use those mods (get them from the Nexus), you can easily set up and switch between sets of tactics tailor made for the handful’ish encounters types in the game. It’s also a good idea to set up a tactic for finishing combination attacks. It takes a lot of the micro out of boss fights and, more importantly, makes them play a lot faster (which you’ll want, because DA:O boss design is of the “heap on more hit points mates” school).

But I guess the real appeal of the tactics system, is watching your little group tear through enemies because your AI script is better than theirs. It may or may not do anything for you, of course, but it pleases me immensely :p

1957

Leaving combat to tactics settings can often get wonky. Party members have to be tightly focus-fired; if you let them freely choose their targets even for a few moments before locking them down, they can attack targets without checking for the presence of Sleep and other crowd control effects that break on damage or make the target immune to damage. Abilities like Cone of Cold and its fire-based counterpart are also cast regardless of party positioning.

They also don’t seem to check if a target is stunned or knocked down before applying a stun or knockdown, thus wasting the ability. This can make fights with multiple mages pretty hairy (unless you have Mana Clash). I’ve had fights turn on a single Fireball or Chain Lightening that the caster managed to get off because no one could stop him in time.

1958

To be fair, the system isn’t meant to handle fights for you. And unmodified, it certainly can’t. It can reduce the micro a little, but that’s about it.

Even modified the system isn’t meant to handle fights for you, but it actually can manage some encounters with no player intervention. And it is elaborate enough that most (possibly all by now) of the issues you just mentioned, can be addressed.

The key to using tactics effectively, whether you use mods or not, is to create multiple situational sets that support an overall party strategy.
If you’re in a wizard fight, for example, make a set of tactics for your party to fight wizards. Make one petrify the caster while another crushes it, a third generates a burst of aggro so the enemies don’t foul up your coordination, and have the fourth run interference.
If you’re fighting DA:O Big 'Uns (whatever they’re called), have one guy slow them, another knock them over, a third armour-shatter them, and the fourth stabby-stab them dead.

Even very simple sets of tactics like that can almost instantly kill the biggest threats on the field, without you having to spend 2 minutes with the game mostly paused, and they’re easily doable with the unmodified tactics system.

1959

I will most likely end up tweaking a couple slowly and ease into it. The number of options make my eyes burn. Right now, I would just as soon not fool with mods, but once I get familiar with the overall game and combat more, that could certainly change.

Thanks for the input.

1960

The tactics are interesting, but I never bothered tweaking them to make them effective. The only trigger I used was the one to self-heal if the character’s health fell below 25%… Everything else I just micromanaged myself.