Dragon Age: Origins QuestionFollow

Would be more for the achievements. :D

What I found though is that at Awakening levels, you really need to invest in close ranged stuff. It's fine having an some archer talents, but you really need to prepare to switch to melee or have some sort of melee 'Get away from me!' ability to deal with multiples. I got way more mileage out of the dwarf rogue over Nathaniel once I caved and switched them up. :/ I did plow through Nightmare mode on a mage Warden though, not a rogue. The only fight that seriously gave me trouble to the point where I actually dropped the difficulty level out of annoyance was a surprisingly irritating fight involving two orange-named dragons. YMMV though!

Oghren: That sodding dog! He took my sodding pants!

Warden: Oghren, you're wearing your pants.

Oghren: The dog don't know that!

KOTOR 1: Amazing;
KOTOR 2: Awful;
KOTOR 2 with fan made patch: Double amazing;
SW: TOR: Hopefully amazing

Mass Effect 1: Second best game I've ever played;
Mass Effect 2: Best game I've ever played.

Joph, I don't know what you don't like about the ME interface. I thought it was quite simple to navigate around - the Dragon Age 1 interface annoyed me a bit, there was a lot more stuff on there than I wanted and I kept hitting the wrong buttons on it. I agree with whoever said it, though. Unloading equip etc is a nightmare, but at least you can convert them to omni-gel to save time.

ME2 improves on all that, and I didn't think any of the characters felt bland. Each one was kinda unique... although there was too many, really. But then again most of the game is about building the ultimate crew, so I guess it was required.

As for KOTOR, if you're a Star Wars fan, you need to play it. It really is THAT good.

All of it. I preferred the from-the-back style view of DA:O with the free cursor over ME's FPS set-up (I realize that ME is a plot based FPS style game), the inventory system, weapon switches, the goofy chat wheel, the fact that what the wheel said wasn't what I would actually say, etc.

I'm not a huge sci-fi fan (I don't hate it but it's not my first choice of genres) so muddling through the interface for a sci-fi plot just didn't feel worth it to me. I'm probably just going to set them aside for now, play some mindless shoot/slash 'em ups and maybe come back later after a break. Jumping into it immediately after DA:O might have been a mistake.

Know what bugs me the most about that wheel? The "skip dialog button" also works as a "confirm" button. If you want to skip dialog, you better play close attention, otherwise you end up choosing the wrong option. At least that was fixed in DA2.

The interface in ME1 was clunky, especially trying to access your inventory. The only saving grace is that everything was ordered by tier rather than alphabetical order.

There were times where they didn't sync up well though. Occasionally I'd pick the "charming" option and Hawke would be such an ***--and not in the cute sort of way.

Beat Awakening and Witch Hunt tonight...

Awakening:
This was a damn good expansion.
Pros: The combat and crafting systems were expanded. Each choice really felt like it had consequences. I ended up liking the characters more than I thought I would.
Cons: Obviously it felt short. It was like DA:O... but shorter and more put together. The irony is that any other game could be this long and be called a full game, not an expansion... but because DA:O was SO huge, it felt short. The lack of a camp function and romance took away from it.

I really enjoyed Dragon Age - Awakening. the story was told well, and there were still moments that put me on the edge of my seat. The dragon fights in particular surprised me; the Queen of the Blackmarsh in particular pleasantly surprised me. Nothing was inherently "hard" in it (and I played on hard) but then again I used two mages (Anders and Velanna). I didn't complete all of the quests, and I never even touched armor runes. Still, it was enjoyable. And I got a pretty good ending: SpoilerI chose to protect the farmlands, and then stayed to liberate Amaranthine instead of going back to Vigil's Keep. In the end, because I upgraded the walls and the soldiers' armor, Vigil's Keep did NOT fall, and only Justice died (but hey, he was already dead!). All the ending was positive as well, except perhaps Velanna, who searched for her sister, and Oghren, who never got back together with Felsi.

Witch Hunt, however, was bull. I disliked all of it. BY THE WAY, make sure you play Awakening before Witch Hunt, as that's the proper order. Still, unless the end set up the premise for DA2, it was pretty bad. Nothing is explained, and it took me just over an hour to power through (having a level 31 rogue helped). I didn't feel for the characters at all... although it was nice to have Barkspawn back... in the end, it felt lacking.

Still have Golems of Argharghargh left. I think with my rogue warden I should be able to beat the Harvester on Hard to get the bonus item. We'll see?

Also, archery is OP in Awakening. I was backstabbing for 75% of the game; switched to archery and never looked back. With Accuracy and a supremely buffed dexterity score, I was regularly critting for over 300 damage. Awesomesauce.

I might have to play DA:O again. Or finish DA2, but meh.

All this talk is making me want DA:3. Have Bioware announced anything yet?

I hope my olde laptop can run DA:3 when it arrives.

You sure that one's a bug? I got my items back much later, and all the random crap I accumulated before they got swiped ended up in a chest next to a Qunari vendor.

Ended up beating (and gaining all the achievements) for both the Darkspawn Chronicles and Golems of Amgarrak over the weekend. I personally found Darkspawn Chronicles to be the most difficult... at least if you're gunning for the Enthralling achievement. If you just want to win it, it's probably doable on a higher difficulty, but at some points I found it challenging even on Casual (namely, the final battle, and the Palace District once you get to the top tier).

Golems of Amgarrak was a fun little DLC, and the final boss was a challenge (fought him on hard). The first thing I had to get used to was that I didn't have a mage; the closest you get is a golem that has cleansing aura (and eventually group heal and Revival). The second was that I somehow lost most of my decent archery gear from Awakening; I think I gave most of my +crit gear to Nathaniel. Doh! That meant that I had an archer for a rogue who had maybe a 30-40% crit rating instead of the 70-80% I expected. The last thing is that almost every battle is against elite (or higher) enemies. That means a lot of the crowd control and tactics I would have used in other Origins' battles didn't apply.

Also, for being level 34 (scaled to my character level), my dwarven companions seemed quite underpowered*.

Still, I beat the boss, first try, on Hard. A Grim Reaper is me! Next game I start with an item whose value is over 1300 gold; insta-sell it for awesome items early on (hello, Spellward!). Time to finish off some of the last outstanding achievements I have (including three Origins stories), and then I'll officially be done with DA:Origins

*Edit: Or, it could just be that my warden is overpowered. At level 34, due to the trick with the Fade essences giving multiple +1s, I had around 110 unbuffed dexterity. Maybe in my next game I won't abuse the essences so much, as it did make my character able to dodge almost every physical attack while punching out 300+ damage ranged crits without Aim activated.

Edited, Oct 17th 2011 10:08am by LockeColeMA