Dragon Age

[jakonovski]

Ok, stupid question time again: where do you get the recipes for better poultices? No healers mean you have to constantly chug potions and I'd like to be able to make something better than Lesser.

[Tarami]

Some vendors have them, try the elves for example (B-something Woods)

[Xilren's Twin]

11 hours in, 20% of the world seen. And I've missed nothing.

Did you by mistake turn "run" off?

No, and i've skipped the merc and "unaligned mage" quest boards so im a little puzzled by the difference.  Thus far i've done the Dalish Elves, Fyrestone castle, and the mages tower, plus every chantry quest board posting i've come across.  I tend to be methodical in exploration going over every room, planning out each fight for best advantage hmm.  I've got it! You escape through the dialogue as opposed to actually listening to it :-p

And yes, shapeshifting in the fade was "ok" but clearly more a puzzle to slow you down than fun or clever use of such an ability, but i wonder was use you could make out of it the toolset...

[gryeyes]

Well, there isn't much of shit written to figure some of those details out. Not a very well documented game imo... and I don't even mean in a spreadsheeting fag kind of way. I mean, I didn't even know what some entire specializations were at first.

The lack of documentation about game mechanics and the extraordinarily vague spell/skill descriptions greatly hampers the players ability to make informed choices. The icon descriptions by and large don't tell you shit. Or at least some fucking way to observe ALL applicable effects and stats with a numeric value. The rogue picking crap also took me by surprise, not only do you need a stat investment on top of max ranked skill, but its a secondary stat as well. Ignoring that I believe I received 1-2 things beyond random trash from a pickable chest. Most don't even have money ffs.

Mages are men amongst boys, you don't even have to twink them for them to completely break the game. They excel at every given task (often at the same time). Heal should not be available to all casters with a single point investment. I really like how sustained spells function but the class needs some other form of power inhibitor, maybe a "corruption" bar that scales with level. Fatigue just does not limit mages enough. Itemization is sparse, I fear this is not unrelated to DLC. Main plot is extraordinarily heartless, made more glaring by how fleshed out the world is. Pandering DLC IN the fucking game. Difficulty having no internal consistency regardless of setting. Lack of documentation and shit AI.

Still 30+ hrs of good ole RPGing.

[stray]

I have a rogue character.. A human which I'd prefer to play actually. Just feel like "roleplaying" a jack of all trades ranger type of dude in this game. I'm going to forget that they suck in comparison to mages.

[jakonovski]

Mage imbalance doesn't matter, since it's a single player game. In fact it fits the world because now it makes sense for Templars to hunt mages.

[tmp]

They spent a good deal of effort to flesh out the world with words and the intros to have such a forgettable plot. Giant evil dragon monster with no name,personality or motive.

The give some details in the Codex. The big bads are believed to be seven old (lesser) gods who had been put to sleep in the deeps by the Maker. They are sought by darkspawn and awakened/tainted by it whenever one gets found, forming a Blight. Four of the seven was found so far, making current one the fifth. The darkspawn's motive for doing so is speculated to be revenge for being made the darkspawn by the Maker in the first place, though it's admitted that's just a speculation as the darkspawn isn't exactly interested in justifying itself or holding diplomacy tea parties.

It's not really very different from Christian devil in terms of the plot, though i guess crossed with Tower of Babel idea for slightly greater complexity.

[gryeyes]

Yeah, ive read the all codex chapters. I wasn't implying lore wasn't available, (Still doesn't explain why the "archdemon" doesn't have a fucking name or personality. It also states that archdemons could be any corrupted High Dragon and not just one of the "old gods"/Oldest known dragons,what darkspawn are and why they would seek High Dragons) The mage intro is a good example of both, it explains the basic metaphysics and magic related politics while actually playing. You don't meet any speaking darkspawn even tho lore states they exist, they even state that Gray Wardens can actually understand and communicate with an Archdemon, but that never happens. Shit they even explain that darkspawn/Archdemon are not daemonic in nature so is it even called "archdemon".

Its a nameless generic dragon with a faceless generic horde, with no motive beyond "wreck shit!", this makes the finale feel very hollow. It was more tedious than interesting, very anti climatic (entire finale is pretty shit in gameplay and storytelling). ME had the same basic "force of nature" type baddies but they still managed to flesh out the protagonist's personality and motives. I get a novel every time I speak to an unnamed peasant, but I get no direct dialog with the main evil (Not even a humanoid proxy?!).

[caladein]

Hmm... nameless dragons and decedents of a religion's Big Bad... I wonder where I've heard that before.

[tmp]

On unrelated note: user-made dagger damage bug-fix

"Makes daggers use dex and str for damage instead of just str. Add this file to "BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override" under your Documents directory."

[Nerf]

On unrelated note: user-made dagger damage bug-fix

"Makes daggers use dex and str for damage instead of just str. Add this file to "BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override" under your Documents directory."

One of the main rogue skills makes weapons use either dex or cunning for damage, so I don't really see how this is necessary.

[tmp]

As i understand it dexterity attribute is supposed to directly contribute to piercing weapons damage (which is why they only use 85% of strength in damage calculation rather than 100+ like bigger weapons) but at the moment it doesn't. So this simply makes the game work as it claims to work, no matter if you take any specific talents or not.

... btw i can't figure out which talent you mean. The only one i can find is Lethality which is quite a different beast as it uses cunning instead of strength. But you'll still be missing the dexterity bonus with this one without the bug fix..?

[gryeyes]

And the stat req for them is dex instead of strength, unless the talent changes that also.

[Lucas]

And here is a official "experimental hotfix" (READ THE DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY! make backups of saves!) made by Bioware's Georg Zoeller:

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/hotfix/dexterity_hotfix_101

Post made by Zoeller in the "old" official forums:

[tmp]

Hmm i may pick up this one instead. The bundled changes to ranged damage are sort of given the usual amount of archers involved in the fights, but then the Normal mode was bit on the easy side so far.

[tmp]

Camp storage chest add-on

"Spawns a storage chest at the party camp. (Only works in the main camp, some versions where combat or cutscenes take place will not have access to the chest.)"

[Lucas]

Just finished the "introductory" part of the game. Gee, 4.05am, need to go to bed  

[Slyfeind]

Heh, one of the loading screen tips is "When in doubt, go for the eyes!" 

[jakonovski]

More stupid questions: is it possible to deliberately set camp, in order to get to the camping area?

[Xurtan]

Eh? If I read the question right, you can click on the camp icon (Top right) from any World Map.

[Lucas]

Heh, one of the loading screen tips is "When in doubt, go for the eyes!" 

And when you access the world map, you get a confirmation screen asking "gather your party and venture forth?", which was the annoying voice in BG ("you must gather your party before venturing forth!!!") warning you that your party was too much spread out so you couldn't access the next area.

[Reg]

I just came across a "Harvest Ring" that gives me +1 to all of my attributes? Isn't that the prize you win in NWN 2 for getting through the tutorial?

[Lucas]

I just came across a "Harvest Ring" that gives me +1 to all of my attributes? Isn't that the prize you win in NWN 2 for getting through the tutorial?

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/NWN2/Walkthrough/Items/Cloaks.php

Harvest Cloak
Location: Awarded for winning all four competitions held during the West Harbor fair.
Special Properties: +1 bonus to Charisma

[Draegan]

So I had a pretty long play session on Saturday. 

I got through the Redcliffe area and decided to save the kid by going to the Magi Circle.  Now I stopped in the fade.  Terrible area btw.  Fucking sucks.

I have me, the tank, Wynne, Sten, and Morrigan.

The Magi Tower was incredibly EASY.  I wrecked through stuff, however, the Zombie Zerg castle was tough.

I'm level 9ish right now and I havn't gotten a chance to spend a specialization point yet.  I need to get back to camp.

I love this game so far, I'm actually enjoying the story.  I wonder if this is anything like what we should expect SWTOR to be with the added part of having other people fuck up your shit.

[Sky]

Playing Dragon Age on the Cowboy Stadium monitor would be fairly 

I'm skimming to avoid spoilers right now, but 

[Nerf]

I found the zombie zerg to be incredibly easy with me (assassin), zeg (assassin), morrigan and alistair.  I used Sten for about 5 minutes before switching out for Dog, didnt like him one bit.  So far the hardest has been the dwarf area, took me friday night and all day saturday to beat.  Next playthrough I'm going to do the Bhelen side instead of harrowmont just to see if its different.  I actually had to take it off of hard difficulty to get past a couple of the fights in the dwarf area, the spider queen is a fucking bitch.

[Gorky]

From what I've read so far, the Dwarf part is the hardest of all and might be better left for last. Playing a goody two-shoes elf mage for my first run, thinking of going with a combat/pick locks oriented rogue next

[Montague]

I didnt like Sten early on either, but once he gets some of his passives going with Critical Strike he becomes a wrecking ball.

The zerg encounters are starting to grate on my nerves though. Next playthrough I'm going Mage with AOE out the ass.

[Morfiend]

I found the zombie zerg to be incredibly easy with me (assassin), zeg (assassin), morrigan and alistair.  I used Sten for about 5 minutes before switching out for Dog, didnt like him one bit.  So far the hardest has been the dwarf area, took me friday night and all day saturday to beat.  Next playthrough I'm going to do the Bhelen side instead of harrowmont just to see if its different.  I actually had to take it off of hard difficulty to get past a couple of the fights in the dwarf area, the spider queen is a fucking bitch.

[Draegan]

I did that too.

My next play through will be as an Arcane Warrior.

[Bandit]

I found the zombie zerg to be incredibly easy with me (assassin), zeg (assassin), morrigan and alistair.  I used Sten for about 5 minutes before switching out for Dog, didnt like him one bit.  So far the hardest has been the dwarf area, took me friday night and all day saturday to beat.  Next playthrough I'm going to do the Bhelen side instead of harrowmont just to see if its different.  I actually had to take it off of hard difficulty to get past a couple of the fights in the dwarf area, the spider queen is a fucking bitch.

[Draegan]

This may have been answered already but, how do I get the DLC?  When I open the DLC option from the main menu there is nothing available.

[tmp]

It's a disappointment when dragon hoard holds less money than your average merchant seems to carry around with them

[Montague]

This may have been answered already but, how do I get the DLC?  When I open the DLC option from the main menu there is nothing available.

Give administrator access to the Dragon Age executable, run the Configuration utility and clear the download cache. That worked for me, there was another workaround somewhere on the Bioware forums if that doesn't fix it.

Real edit: Save the settings and restart the game after doing the above.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, I'm nearing end-game and enjoying the hell out of myself. I'm already planning my next character and what to do on that playthrough. I wish they'd patch the difficulty, sometimes this game takes a huge jump, oftentimes in the same area.

My current default party is Morrigan, Wynne, and Leilana or as my wife calls it "your typical harem party." Morrigan has taken the healer spec. Leilana is a duelist as well as bard. I think I made Wynne go arcane warrior just for shits and giggles. I'm a 2-hand warrior. The battles usually go like this:

I lure most of the mobs two me and open with a sweep which usually knocks them all down. Leilana and the other 2 fight from range. Anytime we get <50% health Wynne or Morrigan casts group heal. Typically it is Wynne. Usually on the next time we get that low Morrigan casts it since Wynne's cooldown is still on cooldown. MOST fights are easy and I don't even have to issue orders. I usually only run into problems if a large number of mobs get past me and start wailing on Wynne. Morrigan just casts horror when that happens but I haven't bought Wynne the same kind of spell.

Somehow I seem to have broken the romances in a good way.