The Gaming Den

radthemad4 wrote:Anyone tried any mods? I might try this one if I decide to pick up Origins again.

All Origins Playable by All Races and Classes wrote:This mod enables all background Origins for all races and classes. Also has an Item to change at any point in time.
For example: A Dwarf Dalish Mage. Or a Elf Human Noble Rouge.

I've tried a few, let me open Nexus Mod Manager and see what I'm currently running:

-Skip the Fade. I liked the fade the first time I played it, but on replays it takes too damn long. The mod just gives you the state bonuses and journal entries so you can just get through it: http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/816/?

-Dragon Age Rules fixpack. This is a basic fix for a lot of bugs, and some more tweaks. I recommend not installing the tweak that removes your helmet when not in battle because it's borked, but as it's modular that's easy to do. http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/1601/?

And that's about it, really...

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:So, I'm playing Inquisition, and everyone's hair is distractingly shiny. I'm assuming that's due to some part of my computer taking a shit and not due to any stylistic choices on the part of the designers. Is there any way to tweak that? Also, my computer is having issues and the framerate is really chugging along, is there a way to tweak that? Turning down the graphical settings doesn't seem to affect it.

The biggest system hog is the anitalliassing. Turn it off. Hair being shiny is also probably some probably problem with your system. I highly recommend updating the NVidia drivers to the latest version.

I'll do that. Turning off the antialiasing and dropping the resolution to 720 helped but it's still choppy as hell. I'm also noticing that Skyrim has been shoppy too lately and it didn't used to be like that.

EDIT: Alright, I updated my driver and everything is still way too shiny... I might give it some time to patch and look into other ways to increase the framerate. I wonder what I have running in the background. Although installing the driver sure is making Skyrim run smooth again. I might have to face it and accept that although my laptop is pretty beastly I really should get a game rig at some point.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:

radthemad4 wrote:Anyone tried any mods? I might try this one if I decide to pick up Origins again.

All Origins Playable by All Races and Classes wrote:This mod enables all background Origins for all races and classes. Also has an Item to change at any point in time.
For example: A Dwarf Dalish Mage. Or a Elf Human Noble Rouge.

I've tried a few, let me open Nexus Mod Manager and see what I'm currently running:

-Skip the Fade. I liked the fade the first time I played it, but on replays it takes too damn long. The mod just gives you the state bonuses and journal entries so you can just get through it: http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/816/?

-Dragon Age Rules fixpack. This is a basic fix for a lot of bugs, and some more tweaks. I recommend not installing the tweak that removes your helmet when not in battle because it's borked, but as it's modular that's easy to do. http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/1601/?

And that's about it, really...

Thanks, those fixes seem pretty awesome (especially auto looting, and not needing to swap out for lockpicking/trap disarming is cool too) and yeah, I wouldn't want to do the fade again (the shape shifting was a lot of fun though).

So. How is Dragon Age Inquisition so far? It seems people are by and large saying that while the game is by and large improvement, EA destroyed too much goodwill for people to really get excited about this series as much as they used to.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. How is Dragon Age Inquisition so far? It seems people are by and large saying that while the game is by and large improvement, EA destroyed too much goodwill for people to really get excited about this series as much as they used to.

Other than "Shiny and jerky", I can't give much of an opinion. Something seems off with the female Tal'Vashoth's face.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. How is Dragon Age Inquisition so far? It seems people are by and large saying that while the game is by and large improvement, EA destroyed too much goodwill for people to really get excited about this series as much as they used to.

25 hours in and I like it. My OCD gaming habbit is killing me though, because the first area (Hinterlands) has something like 30 sidequests, and you are supposed to leave it before you've finished them all and then come back later. And that's the same for every area.

Also there's a distinct lack of good romance choices for male heterosexual Inquisitors. Only three out of nine companions are female, and out of them one is a lesbian (Sera) and one is old* and bitchy (Vivienne). Cassandra and Josephine seem to be the only choices.

*Not old in terms of appearance, old in terms of how she acts and talks to you.


The action is good and actiony (although it plays nothing like DA:O). Soundtrack is good. The end of act 1 is very epic.
Classess seem to be reasonably balanced. Warriors excell at tanking, rogues excell at dealing damage, mages control the battlefield and inflict status effects.

The downsides are mainly in the interface. Like I said before, it wears console DNA like a japanese pornstar. The inventory is terrible. It's a list of items split into to four categories (weapons, armor, accessories, parts), very much like Skyrim's inventory. It's hard to navigate.
The tactical mode is fit for analogue stick, and controlls poorly on the keyboard+mouse. I haven't used it once though, so whatever.

Also a lot of sidequests (including the quests to get a specialization) involve grinding for materials. One of the quests in Hinterlans involves hunting down ten rams. Neutral animals who die in about 5 seconds and never attack you, even in retaliation.
However, companion quests and plot quests are very good, involve a lot of talking and other fun RPG stuff. Grinding is limited to sidequests.

The Knight-Enchanter mage specialty is quite fun. It completely changes the mage's play style from a ranged controller to the close combat warrior. You compensate for light armor with the Barrier buff (which is improved by the specialty) and compensate for the staff's low damage by having it be Spirit damage, which bypasses the armor.

How action oriented are the controls? Are defenses active like having a button to block, parry, roll away, or is it passive "you have X% to raise your shield" type stuff?

Like Dragon Age 2 mostly. Shields just give a bonus to defense against attacks from the front.

I'm about 15 hours into the game. It doesn't seem that tanks are very sticky in this game, and the AI does some really weird shit (Cassandra seems to want to run all over the damn place).

Sera is a chav. It was hilarious for about a minute, and by the end of her introductory quests I didn't want to put her in my group again, because that means I would have to hear her talk...

Playing a defensive mage is not an automatic win like it was in DA1 and 2, but so far I'm content with letting the rest of the party hit things while I put up barriers and knock down other barriers.

Most of the rest of the party doesn't seem too fond of me except Varric, but that's fine because from what I've read they don't leave you, they just act like dicks to you. As long as they're doing the heavy hitting while I take down buffs and mitigate damage, they can be dicks all they want.

Also, hearing The Iron Bull talk about the Qun seems to be reverse damage control after Dragon Age 2 made them the only people that made any goddamn sense in the game.

(If anyone wants to know, the shiny hair issue is a problem with the game using any mesh other than high, whereas the slow framerate was because my computer insisted on using the onboard graphics card and it took some convincing to get it to use the actual graphics card).

I busted my ass last night and sorted out that damnable Dragonagekeep.com bullshit.

From what I see from watching my sister play, the game looks pretty polished gameplay wise. I like the party members I've seen.

So I thought maybe I'd give it a shot and import a save and then it turns out the Taint of EA is upon this. Because instead of just importing save files, they want to log into a website using Origin.

I had an Origin account already, from having to resolve some Mass Effect problems a year or two ago, but the account on my Xbox wouldn't link to it. I got on customer service and they (finally) resolved it. I think the dude was deliberately screwing with me because none of the e-mails he claimed he sent arrived, even after I made sure he was sending them to the right address, but a test e-mail from a friend did. And the official Origin case number e-mail arrived just fine.

Goddamn EA.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Playing a defensive mage is not an automatic win like it was in DA1 and 2, but so far I'm content with letting the rest of the party hit things while I put up barriers and knock down other barriers.

It is an automatic win. Properly built knight-enchanters never run out of barriers or mana, and can solo everything on Nightmare.

Fun thing about the Dragon Keep crap: When I did it, it managed to get all my DA:O and DA:A stuff straight, but seeing how Hawke has a beard and a penis now, I'm guessing that it didn't import my DA:2 data at all.

Wondering why the characters I took to the last fight in Chapter 1 have their specializations while the others do not, I hope they will appear once I bring them somewhere...

EDIT: Longes, I am intrigued by that. I've heard Knight Enchanters are boss, but since the game is fairly new I haven't found a lot of information. Mind elaborating how I would accomplish such a thing?

Specs appear when you add characters to the party after getting skyhold

So, about Knight-Enchnaters.
Your power comes from the these three abilities:
-Spirit Blade. The first ability in the tree. It costs 10 mana and has no recharge time. It makes a melee attack with a magical sword for 300% of your staff damage, plus 200% against barriers and 400% against guard. Remember, that the sword's damage type is Spirit, which means that armor doesn't apply.
This your main attack now. Using staff is worse than using Spirit Blade in pretty much every situation.
-Combat Clarity. You get 50% faster mana regeneration when within 5 meters of the enemy.
This means you'll never run out of mana for your Spirit Blade.
-Fade Shield. You get 30% of damage you deal back as your barrier.
Congratulations. With a good staff you'll never run out of Barrier as long as you keep fighting. And if you did run out of barrier, you can just recast it, thanks to your great mana regeneration speed.

Now, the synergies. You obviously want the whole right branch of the Spirit tree, because it makes your shield stronger. You want Clear Burn from the Fire tree. It reduces spell cooldown time each time you cast a spell. Spirit Blade is a spell. You cast it all the time. You also want Fade Step from the Frost tree. Together with Fade Cloak from the Knight Enchanter it gives you 4 seconds of invulnerability whenver you want.

About Viviene. Don't put any points into the Knight Enchanter specialty for her. AI doesn't know how to use Knight Enchanter properly, so all those points are wasted.

Interesting. Is there a way to be similarly unstoppable in dragon age: origins, which is the only one in the series I have?

Ironically, it's the same way. Mage -> Arcane Warrior specialization. It's basically the same fluff as Knight Enchanters have - warrior-mage tradition passed since ancient times.

Here's a guide for it on bioware forums

The difference is that Knight Enchanter relies on passives to keep up his Barrier and has a very limited arsenal of attack spells, while Arcane Warrior buffs up with sustained spells and has very small mana pool left to use anything else.

The Arcane Warrior is tough as balls but kind of dull if you ask me. Granted, you will wing by virtue of the fact that you can't be killed unless you're away from the computer taking a shit (and even then a short shit won't even get you killed), but all the work is in the preparation and actual gameplay is dull.

But balls aren't tough at all when they're hit....

Mine are.

Count Arioch's balls warp time and space, so when you try to kick him there, you really end up kicking yourself there instead.

Anyway, aside from being an arcane warrior of invincibility but less offense, what are some other good ways to build a mage character, particularly if I want him to be the primary mage of the party with little to no wynn or morrigan?

The best advice is to stock up one crowd control abilities, because your best spells will take out your allies (Playing on easy will take away damage from friendly fire, but it won't stop a fireball from flattening your melee characters, or stop blizzard from slowing them to give a few examples)

You will need to babysit your entire party more, you can't just let them run screaming into the hellstorm you just dropped because they will in fact to that.

Blood magic is pretty damn good in Origins. You get to alpha strike so hard you run out of mana and then start using your hitpoints as your mana bar. The blood magic only spells are also sweet, one of them is a single-target mind control spell, while the other is a massive and pretty powerful AoE that I believe is selective even with friendly fire turned on, plus it carries a paralysis rider. Only drawback is that it doesn't work on things which don't have any blood.

Also, take Mana Clash. It has a massive AoE that takes away all enemy mana and deals hp damage proportional to the mana that a guy lost. If you cast it at the start of the fight, you'll kill almost any enemy mage, and I think there's only one guy who both can survive the effect and has blood magic to let him keep casting when his mana is obliterated.