Dragon Ages: Origins

I posted before how you can cast that spell through walls. You can do that with the drain spell if you'd like too. Sometimes enemies will actually react to getting hurt and run into the room you're in when you use this tactic though. It's a good idea in this instance to use your glyphs with mage characters so they will run right into them. Another thing I've done is opened a chest through a wall instead of picking the door to the room in order to get it. There's a bunch of things you can do to exploit this game it seems.

 

I'd been casting spells over walls since the second I figured it out but I totally didn't expect to glitch through a wall.

Turns out that you need to kill the blood mage leader to get the key for that room but the second the cutscene started Morrigan appeared back with my party.

 

I havent gotten Shale, Im playing on normal difficulty and man is this game hard.. My main is paper-thin rogue as well.

I dont cheat by looking at internets either.. I wonder how many spoilers there is in this thread.

I have to say that the difficulty of combat is starting to get to me.

 

I didn't really go a great class (Warrior 2H) and I'm breezing through just about every fight I come across.

I get through most of the fights just by managing my party, I don't like to leave everything up to the FF12 gambit system.

 

There was only one or two fights that really messed me up as a Warrior, and they were in the final bit (but strangely enough, the final battle was easy).

 

Do you have a mage in your party?

Mages are definitely monstrous in this game, they make combat much easier. I could see battles being very hard without have Morrigan in your party for example.

Some of the battles are pretty tough and make take more than one play-through. I gave up trying to fight the dragon cause I felt my party just e forest, I twasn't ready to take him on. Earlier in the game, in thried to disturb the graves and got whooped. I had to come back later to have chance to beat the Revanent that appears.

Actually, I just got my first specialization for my main character last night. I learned champion after returning Andraste's Ashes to the earl...

I'm going to up the difficulty to hard or maybe nightmare on my next play-through. I'm not really sure why you're having a lot of difficulty. Don't forget those healing potions either.

May the Maker be with you Manji![/size]

 

I'm doing the forest at the moment.

I've done all the revenants and got the parts of the armour they drop.

It's pretty good armour but I don't use it.

Seeing as Shale is my tank, my DPS only wear things that boost their requires stats so that I don't ruin them with a heavy fatigue stat.

I took Berserker for my first specialization and I don't know what I'll take as my second.

As Gernburgs said, a mage really does make or break your party.

I'm going to try and solo my next playthrough as a mage.

 

I am also finding this game extremely difficult.

I am a 2h warrior class and so far I've died a countless number of times. I wanna know if the ORDER you go places in affects anything?I went to redcliffe and then the mages tower and found the mages tower to be easier so far, i wonder if this is because normally you do the mages tower first? anyone know if order matters and areas have specific levels or if the areas have levels that are determined by the order you do them in?

 

I done it the same order as you and with the same class. I've not really had any problems.

What are your stats and skills and who is in your party?

 

Ah yes, this is a question I can give a very good answer to. There is some difficulty compensation but it works in a much different way than a game like Oblivion. The order you go to different areas DOES matter, however, there are some things that modify this.

The areas will scale to your level BUT the monsters/enemies in each area only have a certain range of levels they can be. If you're level 20 (just an example) and you fight a rat (easiest creature), the rat can only scale so far towards your level. So that specific creature, and every creature in the game, has a maximum and minimum scaling it can do. This effectively limits the possible difficulty a given creature can be.

So let's say the rat has a range of level 1-5. If you're level 1, the rat will be level 1. BUT, if you're level 20, that rat will be level 5 because that's the maximum level a rat can reach. Therefore, a rat will never be that difficult to beat.

Let's take a revanant as an example now. Let's assume the revanant's range is 10-20. If you're level 1 and you fight a revanant, it will still be level 10 and kick your ass. No matter how weak you are, the revanant, as a creature, can only be scaled as low as level 10, so it will almost always be a challenging creature.

When you go to a certain area, that area becomes LOCKED at that difficulty so if you come back to try again later you feel as if you've gained power. This is different from a game like Oblivion where the game just keeps scaling so you never get that feeling like "I'm so much stronger now that I was when I tried this area at first."

In my game, I tried to fight the dragon in the area where Andraste's ashes are found. I could not touch him so I just gave up. Even though my party was about level 13, the dragon's minimum level is probably a lot higher than that. But now that I have been to that area the dragon's difficulty should be locked there, so that when I level up a few more times, I will be me powerful relative to when I first encountered the dragon and it whooped my ass...

These two things combine to scale the difficulty to your party while still making the battles realistic, as it would be pretty ridiculous if you had to fight level 20 rats when rats are supposed to be easy to beat. But, because it also locks the difficulty where it is on your first attempt, if you can't beat a creature and go level up some more to try again later, you will get the sense that your party has gained power.

 

Manji and I had this conversation earlier. His rogue does so little damage when compared to what Morrigan can do, even with critical hits and backstabs. I have to agree with him that melee strikes do so little damage. I'm playing on Nightmare, so I thought it was that. But apparently this carries across difficulties. Your characters seem to be killed very easily in this game, and really the only thing keeping them going in many situations are the skills offered by the mages. Healing, Vulnerability Hex, Paralysis, softening up enemies from a distance with Primal magic before the distance is closed, etc. The mage seems to be by far the best class, followed by warriors who are used as bait to keep enemies from attacking the mages.

 

I can deal more damage than Morrigan, the only problem is that my attack accuracy is questionable.

On a side note, I have just finished the forest. I'm Level 13 now.

Have to get the Ashes, although I have a couple of side quests to take care of first.

 

Every time I read a post in this thread I get more and more tempted to buy this game. So far though i'm not a big fan of Biowares games, I only enoyed Mass Effect and Knights of the Old republic.

 

If you liked them then you'll like Dragon Age, Feck.

If you get the time you should defo check it out.

 

Thank you Gernburgs for your insightful post on how this game does monster levels, it all makes sense now!

And feck, those are the only bioware games I've played and there great. This game is basically a better version of KOTR (although i doubt the main character will have as awesome of a backstory, but im still fairly early in the game still). The combat is MUCH better, and the game seems more detailed in conversations then KOTR as well.

 

I continued where I was, now finishing mages tower. Once I got Wynne, it all started to feel much easier, having a dedicated healer in the team. And the buffs she can do as well.

I also noticed that it is not the damage that is the problem with my rogue, its his glass-jaw. My rogue actually does pretty good damage and can finish most non-tank opponents from behind during one stun.

With Wynne and Morrigan as backup, and Alistair as tank filled up to his eyeballs with the best defensive gear I got, its starting to work ok. The tower with the above team felt almost..easy. Its still glaringly obvious that once my healer/mages die, the melee'ers wont survive on their own against some big-ass monster, or a big angry mob. Im just worried about what will happen if I encounter a mission where I cant use either Morrigan or Wynne.. I have already encountered one.

spoiler alert:
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Flemeth whupped my ass on my first try because I couldnt use Morrigan. I have to get back to this mission.. [/size]
</div></div>

 

It's not your rogue that's the problem then, it's your tank.

You shouldn't have to worry about being hit.

That's why Shale is perfect as a tank. All those talents that cause threat.



And about your spoiler, I met the same fate, I'm gonna level up a bit more then try again.

 

I really don't think you would regret getting this game Feck. It's one of the best RPG's of this generation (in my opinion). There's a lot to the game and it could DEFINITELY be played through multiple times, if you were so inclined. It's a really enjoyable game.

It has tons of skills and abilities to make each class really deep. You could probably play the game three times as a fighter and still make your character's skills really different each time, let alone using the other classes. The combat is so good too, it's really well done and keeps the game very exciting.

 

What!?!?!? That's what I am supposed to do there? Obviously I should have guessed that.

 

I've made a 2H warrior and a Tank already.

I aim to make a guy who uses his bare hands at some point.