Dragon Age - Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Reverend
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Huh, came found two things tonight that I completely missed on my two previous playthroughs, both on the Storm Coast.
Southeast of the Hessarian camp is a cleft/path leading east up into the mountains. Follow it all the way to find an entrance to a small dwarven ruin with three chests, one of which holds a unique shield. Easy to miss since the entrance is not marked on the map.
There's a cabin on a hill northeast of the Small Grove Camp with an unpickable locked door. A little ways east of the cabin is a boss-level Rebel Mage who drops a glowing key that unlocks the door. Of note behind the door is the recipe for the Mighty Offense Tonic.
[Edit]Well hey now, another discovery... South of the Small Grove Camp is a triangle-shaped plateau bordering the Long River. At the southern tip is a small camp with a bottle, and it just so happens to be the final one my rogue was missing from her bottle collection. Huzzah!
Southeast of the Hessarian camp is a cleft/path leading east up into the mountains. Follow it all the way to find an entrance to a small dwarven ruin with three chests, one of which holds a unique shield. Easy to miss since the entrance is not marked on the map.
There's a cabin on a hill northeast of the Small Grove Camp with an unpickable locked door. A little ways east of the cabin is a boss-level Rebel Mage who drops a glowing key that unlocks the door. Of note behind the door is the recipe for the Mighty Offense Tonic.
[Edit]Well hey now, another discovery... South of the Small Grove Camp is a triangle-shaped plateau bordering the Long River. At the southern tip is a small camp with a bottle, and it just so happens to be the final one my rogue was missing from her bottle collection. Huzzah!
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I think there are defiantly some pacing and levelling issues though. I seem to be always over levelled for most areas and there's really not much in the way or character and story going on in most of them. You'd have thought there would have been a more involved narrative thread that'd give you more of a reason to visit these places other than just for the sake of exploration. Mostly it seems to be just a series of fetch quests and "kill x number of y enemies" quests.
I don't mind the exploration but it can be a little boring going around at level 17 and all the enemies are at level 11, from which you get no XP and useless loot. Which also brings up the other problem; I'm perpetually feeling under geared since even the purple drops tend to be five or more levels below and very few are as good as what I could craft myself. :/
I don't mind the exploration but it can be a little boring going around at level 17 and all the enemies are at level 11, from which you get no XP and useless loot. Which also brings up the other problem; I'm perpetually feeling under geared since even the purple drops tend to be five or more levels below and very few are as good as what I could craft myself. :/
Agreed on the leveling, then again, the amount of openness they're offering (you have a shit-ton of choice very early on between very differently leveled regions and quests) combined with no scaling of enemies/encounters basically guarantees people will be overleveled/underleveled for some stuff.
To be honest, I'll take it, as I wouldn't like them to be more restrictive/linear with their content and I don't like scaling á la Bethesda post-TES III.
I would like them to better surface the optimal level range for zones/subzones and quests, though.
To be honest, I'll take it, as I wouldn't like them to be more restrictive/linear with their content and I don't like scaling á la Bethesda post-TES III.
I would like them to better surface the optimal level range for zones/subzones and quests, though.
You're spot on with the item drops, though. I can't remember the last time I got a blue or purple item that was actually level appropriate for my player character or my companions. Almost all the time the rarer items are way underleveled.
As for the depth of side-content, BioWare hasn't gotten that right since DA:O, if you ask me. DA2 was especially bad with their generic voice sample MMORPG-y fetch quests. ("I found THIS." - "Oh, I thought I'd never see THIS again.") They did improve on that aspect of it, and provide more variety of activities. The sheer scope of content prohibits every side quest with an actual story to be of DA:O level of fidelity, I'm afraid.
As for the depth of side-content, BioWare hasn't gotten that right since DA:O, if you ask me. DA2 was especially bad with their generic voice sample MMORPG-y fetch quests. ("I found THIS." - "Oh, I thought I'd never see THIS again.") They did improve on that aspect of it, and provide more variety of activities. The sheer scope of content prohibits every side quest with an actual story to be of DA:O level of fidelity, I'm afraid.
Especially when it was something like a body part, sack full of bones, or an entire corpse that Hawke was lugging around for no apparent reason.
Haha yeah.Especially when it was something like a body part, sack full of bones, or an entire corpse that Hawke was lugging around for no apparent reason.
Also pretty bad: Shepard walking up to random stranger on the Citadel, shoving a random thing in their face. "Here (I creepily listened to your phone conversation two days ago), I heard you need THIS."
I've only put a couple hours into this so far. It's fun although kind of hilariously buggy. What is this, an Elder Scrolls game?! 
I'm role-playing a goody-two-shoes human mage who just wishes everybody would get along.
I'm role-playing a goody-two-shoes human mage who just wishes everybody would get along.
I completed this several days ago. 130 hours on my file, although 25 of them were dedicated to bug-testing after I made the party banter glitch thread on the official forums and it gained way more traction than I'd anticipated and started working to isolate the issue. There's plenty left I could do, but I'm not really a gamer these days outside of strong narrative and characterization stuff, so I'm not terribly motivated to do so. Might take care of the remaining high dragons once the DLC starts to hit, though. I'm a sucker for BioWare DLC, yes sir.
Definitely obvious that a lot of love went into Inquisition, and for the most part I enjoyed myself, but although the locations are beautiful, they also feel disappointingly slim on the story-driven content side. The non-cinematic conversations with NPCs in the game world made me feel far less connected, but I saw that coming thanks to pre-release marketing so I knew what to expect. Lots of fetchy stuff I didn't care to traverse, too, but I did the more interesting side content as I happened upon it, and admittedly I had a lot of fun soaking in the sights in pretty places like the Emerald Graves, Crestwood, Emprise du Lion, and the Western Approach.
Cast is spot-on, and I was delighted by several of them. Companion missions are an incredibly mixed bag; some are delightful, some are far too short to hit highs. A couple of them were so good I felt like I was playing ME2 for half an hour, what with its "characters are us" approach to budget distribution.
Main quest has some franchise-defining high points to be sure. Wasn't exactly thrilled with the endgame, though, but I won't say more.
Combat and character progression are... fine, I guess? There are precious few game series in which I really gave these aspects much thought anymore, honestly. I can tell my ex isn't going to appreciate how streamlined certain aspects are, but I think she'll enjoy other elements of it just the same. From the friends of mine who have also played, that's the general consensus: good in some ways, a step down in others. I was sad to see the FFXII-esque "Gambit System" approach to tactics fall by the wayside, though, and if I noticed it, then surely millions noticed it.
Cast is spot-on, and I was delighted by several of them. Companion missions are an incredibly mixed bag; some are delightful, some are far too short to hit highs. A couple of them were so good I felt like I was playing ME2 for half an hour, what with its "characters are us" approach to budget distribution.
Main quest has some franchise-defining high points to be sure. Wasn't exactly thrilled with the endgame, though, but I won't say more.
Combat and character progression are... fine, I guess? There are precious few game series in which I really gave these aspects much thought anymore, honestly. I can tell my ex isn't going to appreciate how streamlined certain aspects are, but I think she'll enjoy other elements of it just the same. From the friends of mine who have also played, that's the general consensus: good in some ways, a step down in others. I was sad to see the FFXII-esque "Gambit System" approach to tactics fall by the wayside, though, and if I noticed it, then surely millions noticed it.
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"Why? Because elves?!" -Sera
Perfect.
Yeah, the Harts are pretty neat. I prefer my limited edition 2007 meme Horse Armor though.
I never actually used mounts much because banter > speed. But when I did, I hala'd.
Breitbart.com review of Inquisition. Posted purely for comedy value.
I forgot to say yesterday, welcome back Jeff! Long time no see!
OK, I'm about caught back up to where I was, though this time I got tired of being over levelled and skipped three areas and went right to the Hissing Wastes. Still cleared it without too much difficulty. Even the High Dragon only took two attempts and that was without any prep. :/
Still, it was nice to get some loot drops that were more level appropriate.
Now granted I'm on normal difficulty, but I still think they could at least vary the challenge a little. It seems as if all the areas that open up after you get to Skyhold are set at level 11, with some harder level 15 areas. Which is fine initially, but once you clear one area, you're probably already well on your way to level 15. Plus, like I said, it's not just the combat, it's the loot and crafting resources too.
Still, it was nice to get some loot drops that were more level appropriate.
Now granted I'm on normal difficulty, but I still think they could at least vary the challenge a little. It seems as if all the areas that open up after you get to Skyhold are set at level 11, with some harder level 15 areas. Which is fine initially, but once you clear one area, you're probably already well on your way to level 15. Plus, like I said, it's not just the combat, it's the loot and crafting resources too.
Oh, hey! Thanks! Between getting a couple of friends into Trek lately and all this convoluted hubbub about production on 3/XIII, I've been rather Trek-y again recently, so I figured I would jump back into the best Trek community on the net.
Just started out Dragon Age: Origins last night on my PS3. Works well enough on my SD tv, in spite of the small font. I can see things well enough with my glasses on to play the game ok. Decided to play as a Dwarf my first time around.