Dragon Age

[tmp]

In one system the "reasons" of why and solutions to being curbed stomped are discernible and attainable by playing. If an enemy is obviously  beyond your ability, return once stronger. In DA what makes certain areas out of whack with the rest of a given area is unknown. Is the auto-scaling fucking me because my group composition is weak for that level range? Am I able to leave and return without fucking some of my choices (several areas do this)? Is the difficulty on this encounter static and im "supposed" to be unable to complete it now?

This is what i consider comparing a broken game with one that isn't -- what i mean "broken" in this context is the game failing to tell you exactly why you're unable to progress (storyline, wrong tactics, wrong party composition, whatever). Note how for the level-based game you're pretty much giving it benefit of doubt that the difficulty spike is there 'by design' and you're just supposed to come back later; it is not the case of bad group composition etc. Even though it doesn't have to be the case at all.

[d4rkj3di]

Welp.

I seem to be one of the unfortunate completely fucked "No DLC showing up in any of the 3 Tabs" people. Bought the DDE from Steam, and it installed fine. Registered and redeemed codes and all the content shows up on the social site entitlements page. Tried everything in the "My shit is fucked FAQ" thread at the social site technical forums. Checked the game log and it shows that I'm entitled to all the DLC packages. Still nothing. I haven't even gotten to enjoy the game really since I've been fighting this DLC bullshit for 3 days now. Don't really want to call Steam and ask for a refund but if I can't access this shit, I'd like my money back so I could buy the regular version.

Edit - I fixed my issue. Turns out I had a corrupt Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 install. Uninstalled that, reinstalled using the version found in the Dragon Age redist folder and all is well.

[tmp]

I'm probably close to half way and other than doing the first ogre on easy, I haven't run into an encounter I just can't beat although some of them have taken a few runs to get right.  I suspect that has to do with me not making Morrigan learn any healing spells so all healing is done via potions.  The party also doesn't have anyone who can pick locks.  I'll probably do my next run through with a Rogue just to see what's in all those chests I've been missing.

Make sure it's a skilled rogue if you do it -- mine is running with 2nd level of lock-picking but still fails with most of chests in elf forest. I'm just telling myself there really wasn't anything interesting in these chests anyway...

I set all party members but my main on auto-level (yes it's silly but it's RP thing ) so also running with Morrigan without heals. Seems to work ok so far; only had to cheese through a single encounter.

[gryeyes]

I think I'm currently around the halfway point of the game, and I have yet to come across an encounter that I just have been completely unable to beat.  I'm not sure what your issue is, or what areas you're having problems with, but it might just be something as simple as you needing to change up your strategy a little.

Most of what I wrote isnt from my personal experiences. I was never roadblocked by anything on any setting, but after I established the difficulty was by and large random I would kick it down to normal rather than having to cheese my way through a fight. Especially a fight that is completely un-telegraphed with no particular reward or acknowledgment given. And then kick it back up because the valleys of normal are just as out of line as the peaks. And then the fights in which importance is seemingly placed tend to also be unrewarding and trivial in difficulty. This seems wrong and it plays wrong and greatly contributes to the aura of genericness that somehow comes from such an interesting and highly funded setting (Reminds me of WH40k and ASOIAF).

Note how for the level-based game you're pretty much giving it benefit of doubt that the difficulty spike is there 'by design' and you're just supposed to come back later; it is not the case of bad group composition etc. Even though it doesn't have to be the case at all.

Intentional or not the system has that built in buffer for tuning difficulty that the other completely lacks. And rarely is it a spike so much as a discernible curve of difficulty that you can get in where you fit in, and if its a spike its almost always telegraphed. But I don't believe the auto-scaling is in and of itself is the culprit, its that combined with the other things that makes it so pronounced. Im also assuming auto-scaling is supposed to be trying to create a consistent level of difficulty. When saying a game mechanic is broken implies it just doesn't work, and it works in DA but its implementation compares fairly poorly to the alternatives.

[Rasix]

What the fuck are you even talking about anymore?

[gryeyes]

Why the difficulty curve is broken in DA and the role of auto-scaling, I think.

[Nerf]

I just looked at your post count and boggled for a moment, because out of those 2,000 posts I couldn't remember a single one of substance, then I remembered that 4/5 of your posts are arguing with yourself in the wrong thread.  Keep it up!   

[gryeyes]

The ones with me reaming you about shotguns are pretty neat.

[rattran]

I played for a bit today as just a sword and board warrior, dumped all my points into strength. The Dragon Armor combined with shield wall skill is  except when everyone gets chain stunned/knockdowned to an ignoble death.

Still not really finding the fun in the game though. Seems terribly generic.

[Rasix]

You play any of the Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale series at all?  As far as generic.. the game is called Dragon Age.   I suppose "Humans, Dwarves and Elves" was already taken. 

[schild]

You play any of the Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale series at all?  As far as generic.. the game is called Dragon Age.   I suppose "Humans, Dwarves and Elves" was already taken. 

[Rasix]

Need to put in "Chat" somewhere in there.

[Xurtan]

So is it possible to keep Wynne if you choose the evil route for the Urn quest? I've been avoiding the party camp because as soon as I go there, Wynne throws a fit and leaves me.  Makes me wish I had done the Circle before the Urn; perhaps lessening the favor hit if she had been in the party at the time. So far, I've gotten her up to +70 or so. Meh. 

[Velorath]

Why the difficulty curve is broken in DA and the role of auto-scaling, I think.

Sounds more like anytime you came across something challenging you quickly jacked the game's difficulty down, rather than try to figure out a way to beat the encounter because you were too impatient.

Edit: Also it sounds like you want every non-boss encounter in an area to be of roughly equal difficulty, and when things don't work out like that, you're blaming the auto-scaler.  It's not a problem with the scaler that in one room you might run into four enemies in a fairly straightforward fight, and in the next room you might run into 15 coming from different directions, it's by design.  Very careful design I'd imagine, to keep pure hack and slash battles balanced out with more tactical battles so a player doesn't get too bored just plowing through everything, or conversely, get bored by having to micro-manage every battle.

[Draegan]

So I finished the Magi Circle.  Then I went back to Connor at Redcliff (since there were no mages to help him alive anymore) and I didn't want to kill the attractive, but whiny, french chick.  So taking my trusty knife I slit the kids throat in front of everyone.  They all looked disgusted.  Oh well.  All in a days work.

That pussy Alistair was angry with me at camp.  I told him to man up and stop his bitching.  He went back to jerking off around the fire.

Then I did a few Chantry board quests before sleep.  Tonight I goto Denerim in search for the Urn.

I still need 2 points to get the last Templar ability, though I don't know if I like this spec.  Ah well, playing the tank is interesting, but I'm looking forward to a Mage next go around.  Actually being able to use abilities will be fun.

My party now is Me (templar tank), the elf assassin, Wynne and Morigann.


I still can't get access to the DLC.  God damn, and the DA forums were down last night.

[GenVec]

The fact is that the auto-scaling in this game is done differently than in Mass Effect, for some reason I cannot fathom. I believe in ME there are soft-caps for mobs, and the introduction of more difficult spawns as you level up.

So for example, if I fight a Geth trooper at level 20 he will be considerably more powerful than if I fought him at level 10, though he will be relatively much weaker.

if I run Noveria at level 10 I will face a Geth rocket trooper, if do it at level 20 I will face a juggernaut.

For me this system was ideal, as it scaled the difficulty appropriately and at least gave the illusion that all my hard work and leveling was worth a damn. And the previous poster is right about the valleys and peaks; I beat the end boss in one try, while fighting the dwarf bandits required two dozen attempts and some serious game bugging.

Now I'm thinking about going back and playing through as an all blood mage group.

[Zetor]

The difficulty scaling in this game is worse than I thought. I wanted to see how much scaling there was, so I started a new character, levelled it to 25 through the console and went out to blow up darkspawn... only nothing has really changed.

Some more in-depth info on how scaling works from a dev. It sounds darkspawn and such are the sort of creatures that scale up to always be challenging unless you do something like enter area to unlock it and set the creature levels, then go out, level somewhere and come back x levels later. While rats, wolves and other critters are more likely to become roadkills as you gain power.

Think it's pretty fine this way; l.25 character still have a huge advantage over l.5 or whatever, with much broader skill set if nothing else.

Yeah, good info on that link; imo the scaling is pretty well done as well. The dwarf area is a lot nastier than the mage tower and redcliffe in my experience (haven't been to the forest or denerim yet) regardless of level - difficult bosses will be difficult bosses whether you are level 6 or level 20. Maybe I'll revise my opinion after I replay the game, but that's a ways off. :p (btw, someone needs to make a Dungeon-Be-Gone mod for DA)

Also,

[Khaldun]

I've been busy the last few nights, so I went back and tried Redcliffe again, which is the first place I took a Sten-Alistair-Morrigan-rogue PC party. I can't quite make it through the zombie zerg because Morrigan doesn't have heal yet--she levels in the second part of the initial zerg fight, down on the lower area, but I can't get her out of combat to level up. Alistair has Shield Wall, which keeps him up reasonably well; Sten on the other hand is squishier than I'd like. I'm able to keep my rogue PC up pretty well, he's often the last to go down, but I generally croak somewhere after killing a zillion of the damn things with my last healing poultice gone. Maybe I'll go back and get the dog instead of Sten.

[angry.bob]

So far the dog seems to be the best character to control overall. AOE bark-stun and let the retards kill stuff. He's also way faster to run around looting stuff with. Also, why can the dog loot, and why are wolves dropping mana potions.

Also, fan community - hurry up with those longer, explicit sex scenes without the horrible warbling. The 90's called and wants it's fake Enya back. Seriously, every woman NPC in this game with an actual name is such a horny tart that their model may as well be pressing their crotch against a washing machine. They so obviously wanted to outsex/naked The Witcher and then chickened out at the last minute. Boooooooooo.

[Mrbloodworth]

[rattran]

Too much talking, not enough loots. I've got Shale with me, just because he doesn't constantly bicker with the other toons.

And yes, I played Icewind Dale and the BG games, those were more fun to me. This one just seems... disjointed.

[AutomaticZen]

Too much talking, not enough loots. I've got Shale with me, just because he doesn't constantly bicker with the other toons.

And the chicken murder.  That's always a plus.

[Draegan]

I'm enjoying the story.  There are too many Codex entries I havn't read and I feel kinda bad neglecting the other characters.  Bad in a way that I'm missing something.

[Rasix]

I've got Shale with me, just because he doesn't constantly bicker with the other toons.

You're broken. Alistair and Morrigan interactions are priceless as are Morrigan/Leilana.  I often find myself stopping and listening to the entire conversations.  The one where Leilana wants to make over Morrigan was hilarious.   Oghren's are pretty good so far as well.

[Reg]

I'd really like to use the other characters more but I'm just too much of a powergamer not to use Alistair the tank, Morrigan the nuker, Wynne the Healer and me the rogue ranger with my handy pet wolf.

edit: typo

[Job601]

I've been playing on hard, and one of the things I like about the game is that the difficulty is high enough that I don't feel guilty about using cheesy tactics to beat encounters.  Tons of two-handed melee and archers ripping me apart??  Run into a hallway, keep them out with a glyph of repulsion and inferno the whole room.  Can't beat the three drakes about to spawn behind me?  Lay a glyph of repulsion where I know they're going to be, they cast glyph of paralysis on top of it to get the 15 second stun on 2 of them. 

The only thing I don't do because I feel like I'm robbing myself of the experience is abuse the ai and geometry to plunk away with arrows.  (I accidentally discovered that against large melee monsters, like the dragon in brecilian forest, you can leave a stealthed rogue in the doorway, and they'll endlessly try to get past him, unable to hit him because of the stealth.)

[Delmania]

I really hope there is a special for this game coming soon....

[Threash]

I really hope there is a special for this game coming soon....

Well i just got it a gamestop for 10 dollars off, thats good enough for me.  I'm having a hard time putting in the codes though, stupid website.

[caladein]

I'm doing the beginning of Orzammar and with all the running around Alistair/Leliana/Wynne have had some great conversations.  I kind of want to run around with Leliana and Zevran in my party just to see if they break out into a conversation about shoes.

[Comstar]

I often find myself stopping and listening to the entire conversations.  The one where Leilana wants to make over Morrigan was hilarious

Dammit, I was going to play my next run through with Leilana and not Morrigan, but now I want to.

I find Sten quite boring so far (and disapproves of my choices more than Morrigan does), but he had a wonderful discussion with Morrigan when Morrigan asked about the sex habits of Sten's people- "Of course I will come to your tent tonight Morrigion. You need to bring a Helmut. And  combat armour. And a metal bar to bite on. And a hot poker".

[Morfiend]

My quick character observations.

Rogues = pretty worthless.
Mages = DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

[Khaldun]

I actually loved one interaction with Sten: I asked him to tell me about the qunari and he was like "People can't be summed up in several pithy sentences, like 'elves have pointy ears and love to frolic in the forest'. Life is more complicated than that."   I was  ! Then I said something like, "That's not very helpful" and he just says "Get used to disappointment".

But generally yeah, he's a wet blanket. Alistair and Morrigan though are hilarious. I usually speed past that kind of background thing but I stop to listen every time they start going at each other, very funny. Morrigan sure disapproves of a lot though.

[schild]

Elves are a lithe pointy-eared people who excel at poverty.

[Draegan]

Elves are a lithe pointy-eared people who excel at poverty.

The game was worth buying just to hear that line.

[tmp]

Sten is pretty fun to have around the elf camp, improves on the "woe is us" storyteller's tale. That and his overall dickery is a refreshing change.

"You didn't really answer my question did you?"
"No."