Dragon Age 3

[Yegolev]

Everyone should keep a list of txt on people in the internet man.
My cyber-senpais taught me.
One day I made a remark that contradicts what I said much earlier and they pointed out they had a txt on me. :\
From then on I have created a special folder in my computer to hold every .txt on every user I met online.

I've put you in my txt for this.  I'll have to go drinking with you one time.

EDIT
1. Looks great.
2. Controls are 75% on PS4.
3. If you liked DA2 then this is good stuff.
4. If you like collecting shit and squinting at small text, get this game right now.

[Paelos]

Basically yes, if you like collecting, exploring, achievements, collecting shit to craft, screwing with crafting combinations, upgrading gear, finding gear, listening to snappy one-liners, riding around large zones, doing quests, finding quests on the way to quests, doing more quests, sending out companions on quests, and leveling your character, then you'll play it.

If you want the best combat do play Dark Souls or Mount and Blade.

If you want the best story, go see a movie and stop trying to pretend games do story well.

[Falconeer]

I think this might be the best MMORPG to date. Minus to MMO part, of course, but seriously, seems like this has taken lots of notes from MMORPGs and blended lots of the elements we used to play them for into a gigantic single player game. Except for the "online community" part, which has lost its charm a long time ago and everyone does their best to stay away from anyway.

[Samprimary]

42 hours in and I am enjoying it a ton. Finally just got my specialization to Knight Enchanter and it's Arcane Warrior 2.0.

if that's true, does that make KE an absurdly overpowered class?

because Arcane Warrior sure as hell was

[Phildo]

The game's grown a lot on me, too.  Once I finally realized that trying to fight in tactical view was causing my 2h warrior to stutter around trying to find a good attack angle instead of just swinging really big sword.  Definitely onboard with a Mage if I play through the game again, though there's so much content that I think I'm going to need a long break before I give it another go.  The variety of zones and amount of content really is impressive, and the writing has picked up significantly post-intro as folks here have said.  I'm onboard with this now.

Passive skills, Schild.  Passive skills!  (The level is still oversimplified, but I understand the reasoning for it.)

[amiable]

42 hours in and I am enjoying it a ton. Finally just got my specialization to Knight Enchanter and it's Arcane Warrior 2.0.

if that's true, does that make KE an absurdly overpowered class?

because Arcane Warrior sure as hell was

Yase, i'm playing one and its pretty amazing, especially if you synergize the cooldown reduction skills which lets you go invincible every 3 seconds.

[Yegolev]

Forgot a couple things.  Mostly that my wife is tired of me singing the Inquisition song from History of the World.  Also, the fast-travel load times are super short within the same map.  Feels next-gen-y.

[Phildo]

Does the theme song remind anyone else of this?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmj25u5mVvg

[Tannhauser]

Impressions based on 28 hrs played.  Playing this on Low settings on my outdated laptop and the game still looks good.  Frustrated the first couple of hours with the controls, I am now comfortable with them.  I do miss DA2's tactics (god I loved micro-managing those!) but my party can take care of itself while I play my rogue.  The story's good enough but good god the exploration and crafting!  I am done with Hinterlands and Storm Coast; I often just run thru the land, grabbing elfroot and heading for the next POI.  Bravo Bioware, this explorer is having a blast.  Also crafting is back and it's fun and involved.  Not able to make runes yet, but have made some pretty sweet items that were better than blue items of the same general level.

I like how you can play this game as an action shooter or pause it and issue orders.  Tactical mode is disappointing.  

Hate that there is no 'loot all' hotkey when I call up a loot window.  I hate that constant mouse clicking.  

I held off on buying this because of the lameness of DA2, now I'm glad I got it.  I do wonder how I'll feel after 90 hours and I'm still killing bears.

Fucking bears.

[Yegolev]

Does the theme song remind anyone else of this?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmj25u5mVvg

It didn't make an impression on me.  Standard fantasy horseshit that isn't Elder Scrolls.

Also, as promised: my wife likes it a lot so far, minus the bullshit run speed and overloaded X button nonsense.  She calls it Skyrim Lite, which I find amusing.  Looks like a Western FFXII to me, replacing the Star Wars plot with BIOWARGARRBLE.

Hate that there is no 'loot all' hotkey when I call up a loot window.  I hate that constant mouse clicking. 

I thought the top item in the list was the "loot all" option?

[lamaros]

Basically yes, if you like collecting, exploring, achievements, collecting shit to craft, screwing with crafting combinations, upgrading gear, finding gear, listening to snappy one-liners, riding around large zones, doing quests, finding quests on the way to quests, doing more quests, sending out companions on quests, and leveling your character, then you'll play it.

If you want the best combat do play Dark Souls or Mount and Blade.

If you want the best story, go see a movie and stop trying to pretend games do story well.

Sounds like its not for me, ta.

[Ceryse]

Knight-Enchanter specialization is basically the 'I can solo anything' class.

The Rift Mage specialization is basically the 'I can kill you all!' class.

The Necromancy specialization is basically just kind of there.

Personally, I preferred the Rift Mage specialization after I fooled with both for a couple hours before rolling back and sticking with the Rift Mage. However, that was with a Fire specced mage. Knight-Enchanter with a Frost and Lightning spec is.. very good. Unless, of course, it's Vivienne who is the Knight-Enchanter. Companion AI does not mesh well with it -- but the companion AI is pretty bad. Taking the Tactics out was the dumbest decision Bioware made for the game.. and they made a few doozies.

Killed my second dragon.. was a bit disappointed in how easy it was, but then again it never flew around or summoned adds like the one in Hinterlands and Cassandra just tanks the shit out of everything (she never even lost her guard, much less health). Sera still died.. but that's kind of her thing. Also, some of the banter between Vivienne and Sera is hilarious. Takes awhile to get good payoff, but Sera's continuing efforts to get at Vivienne either blowing up in her face or earning little more than a nod, a smile and a "that's nice, dear" attitude makes for some good banter compared to the Cass/Vivienne banter which is far more bland.

[Rasix]

Even if Iron Bull is sub-optimal in my setup, he's worth keeping around:

Bull: Sera, I had a thought. The next time we run into a line of enemies, I'll pick you up and throw you.
Sera: Get off.
Bull: No! This could work ! I loft you over the front rank, and you land behind them to flank ... mayhem ensues.
Sera: I can't fly, you daft tit!
Bull: Think of the mayhem, Sera! Mayhem.
Sera: I'd get a wedge-up something fierce!
Bull: Look, you and Varric are the only ones small enough and he's... pretty dense.
Sera: Well, do some bloody presses!

[Tannhauser]

That's good stuff! Speaking of Sera; I have her auto-levelled and she constantly closes to melee, even with a bow equipped.  What's up with that?  She has two bow skills and a bunch of subterfuge, should I give her a dagger?

[Rasix]

Auto-level? 

[Paelos]

Don't make her an archer. That's what Varric is for.

[Rasix]

I find melee tends to get shat on unless it's a shield warrior with a ton of guard available.  I suppose a dagger rogue, however, would have more de-aggro options available.  Iron Bull is a chore to keep alive (he's just there for the jokes).

I keep as an archer because right now I'd rather only run with one rogue. 

Respeccing is easy anyhow.

[Paelos]

I run tank, two mages, and myself as archer.

Melee sucks in this game until they balance it. Which may be never.

[AcidCat]

That's good stuff! Speaking of Sera; I have her auto-levelled and she constantly closes to melee, even with a bow equipped.  What's up with that?  She has two bow skills and a bunch of subterfuge, should I give her a dagger?

Being an Archer myself I immediately made her Dual Dagger. She gets stuff done, for sure. I just hate that a space in my party has to be taken up by a sword-and-board warrior as so far those characters are terribly boring. I guess I could have made Iron Bull into a tank? Is there any way to re-spec your party members?

[Rasix]

Can they equip the amulet that you buy from the Haven blacksmith?  That respecs things.  Nothing stopping you then from making him sword and board (bored).

[rk47]

So far 200 dps purple dagger at lvl 8 is the best loot I found.

[Tannhauser]

That's good stuff! Speaking of Sera; I have her auto-levelled and she constantly closes to melee, even with a bow equipped.  What's up with that?  She has two bow skills and a bunch of subterfuge, should I give her a dagger?

Being an Archer myself I immediately made her Dual Dagger. She gets stuff done, for sure. I just hate that a space in my party has to be taken up by a sword-and-board warrior as so far those characters are terribly boring. I guess I could have made Iron Bull into a tank? Is there any way to re-spec your party members?

Yeah, I made her dual-dagger and she tears it up now.  Got a sweet purple 203dps dagger for her, not bad for lvl 9.  She also has that skill that has 100% threat reduction from behind and she attacks Cass's target with impunity.  Those two ladies wear out the big bad while I (archer) and Solas or Dorian clear up the trash.  

fake edit:  I think we have the same dagger rk

[tmp]

That's good stuff! Speaking of Sera; I have her auto-levelled and she constantly closes to melee, even with a bow equipped.  What's up with that?  She has two bow skills and a bunch of subterfuge, should I give her a dagger?

At least one of the subterfuge skills she gets if you auto-level her is a melee range ability. So if she has it enabled in the tactics she will use it whenever it's available (the companion AI being stupid and all) and thus automatically go into melee range all the time. If you want to keep her with the bow (which is quite sensible as dagger rogues have it pretty rough) disable it on the abilities page and only use it manually if something comes close enough to punch it in the nuts.

[Ceryse]

Respec amulets work for everyone. Just buy it and 'equip' it on the character you want to respec.

I might try Sera as a dagger rogue; right now I have her as an archer because non-tank melee tend to get nailed hair with AoE attacks. Might try and craft her some daggers with the +guard on hit, to make her survive.

[Quinton]

I am loving this game.  Almost 40 hours invested so far, glad I restarted after 20 due to my too-many-rogues situation.  I love just hiking around exploring the world and questing.  It's a very nice looking world.

Default party lineup is:
PC electricity-centric elven mage
Cassandra sword & board tank
Varric dishing damage with Bianca
Sera dishing more damage with a longbow, or sometimes another character will take her spot.

I  may experiment with Sera as dual-dagger rogue (I also have that 200dps dagger and it looks niiice).  Solid tank + heavy DPS has been working really well for me in minimizing the need to do start-and-stop combat or deal with the tactical camera stuff.  I love the *idea* of the tactical camera -- if they patch in a version that doesn't suck it'd probably entirely change how I play the game.

[rk47]

It was pretty straightforward for dual daggers to get Hook at no cost & cooldown, that way you can just hang back and wait till the target is frozen and shatter it with a dagger special as combo detonator.

Tanks operate differently by pulling their targets to them. They're good at just locking the enemy on themselves while stunning and generating guards.
The reason why I find archer boring is because you don't really need to bother repositioning yourself unless you are directly under attack, even if that happens, hit Cloak and watch the aggro just disappear.

[Paelos]

I would recommend archer as the EZ-MODE of this game. There's no much to it and if you get decent gear you can just pour damage into stuff with stealth aggro-drop impunity.

[rk47]

I would recommend archer as the EZ-MODE of this game. There's no much to it and if you get decent gear you can just pour damage into stuff with stealth aggro-drop impunity.

Yep. I switched to 3x archer/1x mage party and just pwn low level shit at Hinterland when I need to grind power for the main quest.
Three archer does around 500x3 damage with full draw spam. You just can't lose any encounter in Hinterlands at lvl 8. And the EXP gain is so little, but since I'm just doing it for Power... it's fine really to go full retard.
The combat during exploration doesn't get any better than this. If shit goes south, one guy can just stealth and fuck off.

[Paelos]

Yes, it's hard to lose fights if you have stealth, simply because you can see it going badly and just stealth away. Shit will not follow you.

It's good and bad. Good in explorer fights. Bad when you get to bosses since you have nowhere to go for the most part.

[Bunk]

Playing a dual dagger myself, but focusing on the stealth tree because why not. At level six I found a schematic for a Tier 2 dagger when I visited Val Royeaux. Had just enough Tier 2 metal to make two blades. It should be interesting seeing what 216 dps x 2 does to things at level six, though I have a feeling I'll be pulling all the agro off of Casandra, despite reducers.

Oh, and I spent half an hour in Val Royeaux trying to figure out how to get to the upper walkways, including thinking the barrels I found stacked near one were a jumping puzzle. Don't mark doors to areas on the same maps as fast travel points you silly game.

Just got Sera. She's interesting? Decided to crank her up on the poison/trap tree, again because, why not?

[Paelos]

Story starts to crank into high gear after you get Skyhold. Just saying. Even so it took me 20 hours to get there because SHINEY THING OVER THERE.

[murdoc]

42 hours in and I am enjoying it a ton. Finally just got my specialization to Knight Enchanter and it's Arcane Warrior 2.0.

if that's true, does that make KE an absurdly overpowered class?

because Arcane Warrior sure as hell was

It's pretty OP - perma barrier, invulnerable every 3 seconds which explodes into big damage when you come out of it and you can spam your mystical lightsabre pretty much as much as you want.

[Tmon]

I have a keep now, I've gotten so focused on it that I've basically forgotten what the main plot is supposed to be.  If my character could sit in a chair (seriously why is this so fucking hard to include in a game) I'd probably just hang out in the tavern for hours at a time and let the world go to hell.

[AcidCat]

They really need to include the option to customize your non-combat outfit. Why am I constantly strolling around in beige pajamas, its ridiculous.

And repecced Bull to be my sword and board tank, makes my life much easier now deciding who to bring to the party. (Hint: not Cassandra or Blackwall)

[rk47]

I have a keep now, I've gotten so focused on it that I've basically forgotten what the main plot is supposed to be.  If my character could sit in a chair (seriously why is this so fucking hard to include in a game) I'd probably just hang out in the tavern for hours at a time and let the world go to hell.

Hint:
Someone important is about to get murdered, you must farm 30 sidequest to access it.