Games The RPG thread

[Jammin]

I'm pretty happy with the cast we got. It's also funny how different people's takes were on them. Everybody seems to have favorites and they are rarely the same. Like mine are probably Dorain and Blackwall.

Although all of them struggle at times with the pretty janky animations. I guess, maybe it's because of how big the game was or maybe it's the frostbite engine but some of the facial animations aren't even close. Like when my character is sad his face looks like somebody hit him right in balls with a hammer.

 

[SharkBait]

I sometimes disliked the heralds voice being the wrong emotion when characters are dying in front of him...

My favorite is Cole, hes amazing.

Im at 27hours in just trying yo get the 30 power but i keep spending it on unlocking even more areas. Ive been camping in the hintherlands to get power. I like some of the actiony sidequests, they feel relevant.

 

[zelllogan]

I got 20 hours of playtime. I'm level 9 and I sided with the rebel mages in my first big decision. The storyline with Dorian, his old mentor and his son is great. Leliana is epic in this one. I spent most of my time in the hinterlands.

For the moment, I have in my team: Cass, Varric, Sera, Dorian, Iron Bull, Vivienne, Solas and Blackwall.
My current party is Me as a hornless qunari tank (shield + one-handed weapon), Iron Bull as a two-handed warrior, Vivienne as a fire mage and Varric with his beloved bianca. I used to have Sera around as a Dual Wielder. But I can't have 3 closed range fighters in my team, battle is too messy. I might switch Iron Bull off to put Sera or respawn Sera as an archer to replace Varric. My fav characters are Sera and Vivienne. Sera is a pragmatic killing thief and Vivienne is an haughty mage. Interractions between those two are great. I never used Blackwall because his fighting style is the same as my main character. Solas and Cassandra didn't see my party since Vivienne and Iron Bull are present.

Difficulty is well adjusted and dragons seems to be the real deal. First time I met one, Fireball and death in less than 15 seconds. Not exactly like Skyrim .
Among the bad points, outdated animations/movements and pathfinding of our teammates just bad.

 

[SharkBait]

Finally finished just about everything in the hintherlands except the dragon, one monument, and a few shards/a mosaic piece or two.

Im lvl 11, will challenge the hintherlands dragon at 13 or so. I attempted it at lvl 10 and managed to take off 1/8th of health but it has a pretty cheap attack.

My permanent party is cole Cassandra and dorian while im a human mage.

 

[Jammin]

I'm a bit further along, I think. I'm lvl a 14 human rift mage. My party tends to be Cassandra, Varric, and Ruffles(Vivienne) or Dorian.

In hindsight I think Hinterlands was the least impressive region I've seen so far. And that's stunning because I thought the hinterlands were pretty great. Ruffles is such a monster when you respec her for knight enchanter and set spirit blade to priority. Basically, if the fighting gets hard I just bring her into the party and she destroys everything.

I'm considering starting a new game as a rogue/Archer on nightmare. It seems like that would be a fun challenge.

 

[SharkBait]

With how many hours Ive been on Hintherlands Im surprised I havent gotten tired of it. Though I just need to go and mine a few things and get more power (it seems they keep giving that geographical survey thing to get more Power...also why do I need 50 power for this next mission, lol).

I also just want to beat a dragon is that so hard to ask for. I attempted the one in Crestwood and got like 1/4th of its health gone (because the AI seems pretty dumb when we hide near walls etc). But my mage attacks were mostly being immune to the dragon I want to attempt Hintherlands dragon tonight since Im level 13 now and have ice staffs.

Who did people choose in the Wicked Hearts and Eyes thing

Spoiler

I had everyone live but ended up making it where Celene came out in the end, loved her accent, and everyone else seemed rotten. Sorry Briala

And why is there no romance for Cole, hes the only one I want to M/M romance with. So far I seem to be on the Josephine romance part, because I love choosing the romance options for characters just see their flusterred remarks.

 

[Jammin]

In Wicked Hearts I chose..

Spoiler

To exposed Gaspard(but have him spared), save Celene and give Briala some credit for helping.

I haven't decided whiich love interest I'm going to go with yet. Probably Josephine, but I want to see what starting a little way down Cassandra's route is like. I have mixed feelings on her character. When she's doing the grumpy socially awkward warrior thing she's cool, but when she goes all bible thumper on me... that is less cool. If there's more funny stuff like with her personal quest with the Verric's book I might go that route. If it's all "Maker this..." and "Divine that.." she's getting freindzoned.

It funny that you like Cole that much. I can't stand him; and I don't think he can stand me either. He's "Greatly Dissaproved" of a lot of things I've done.

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And if your looking to kill dragons bring Ruffles. On hard she'll probably just be able to solo it. That's how absurd Knight Enchanter is. Just use Spirit blade along with the buff that causes her barrier is restored for 30% of damage dealt along with the various barrier buffs and she becomes an unkillable tank because her barrier will almost never go down. With even half decent gear she can stand toe to toe and smite the living crap out of nearly anything.

 

[SharkBait]

I beat my first dragon the one in the Hintherlands, only took two attempts. First attempt I got it down to like 1.8th or so left but died because the random underlings kept getting in the way and I wasn't keeping barriers around the AI characters. Changed that the second time and go through it pretty well (though still used 11 / 12 potions). Barriers seem pretty great in this game really, if only standard ones could last a bit longer.

Also even the dragons AI seem affected by being unable to handle the terrain when one is close to the edge of it

Spoiler

having the dragon move to that final area in the hintherlands and just sit there stuck in position made it more of a duel for my mage of just waiting until it came close doing a few hits then waiting again, and spamming barrier to endure the burning flames a bit

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I also cant help but feel that the game has so much going on at times that there are lots of visual oddities that pop up, like when you appear in a camp sometimes the characters are floating in the air and are falling down...

 

[Jammin]

I've seen a few of those glitches but not too often. Most of the bugs I've seen have been with the dialogue system. Like several times the dialogue would just hang. Like the flag that moves the conversation along was bugged. I've seen several of those. Also a few crashing bugs. And a visual one involving the knight enchanter spell that slows time in an area. Whenever projectiles or effects hit it they stay there even after the spell times out.

The dragon I killed is the one up in Crestwood and that fight was out in the open. It didn't try to fly around at all it just charged right at me, landed, and tried to eat me. Then got spirit bladed to death. I may have lucked out though because it was vulnerable to spirit magic. That probably made things easier.

 

[SharkBait]

Ah maybe I will take on the Crestwood dragon next, it didnt seem like it would be difficult at least in my first run of it, I just need to give my mages the right stafffs. I craft Cole some good daggers and my Cassandra some good swords.

Heres my Hearld of Andraste.

 

[zelllogan]

I played 36h so far.
i didn t progress much with the main story. I didn t do anything since reaching skyhold.

My party is at level 13 and i just beat the abyssal high dragon from western approach with ease. My party was dorian as a necromancer using walking bomb, vivi as a KE using spirit blade, varrick with bianca and me as the tank. It s a rather defensive party with dorian and vivi casting barrier while i m tanking everything with my crafted armor (275 armor rating on this single piece of equipment at level 13 ...). Crafting is starting to be really powerful.

I mainly explored 3 regions for the moment:
Hinterlands, storm coast and western approach. This last one is my favourite in the game so far. Interesting side quests and good design with magnificient view on the desert. It reminded me the fps rage.

I m satisfied with the game on ps4 but apparently the game is really bad on ps3. It s badly optimized for the previous generation.

Edit: Now 51hours in. Level 17 I think. 3 dragons down so far. I still appreciate crafting a lot. It's very powerful but not game breaking. Still, my armor crafted 15 hours ago is still the one I use, it would be nice to find a legendary armor for my inquisitor ... Strongest weapon I have is also a crafted one: 420 DPS for a dagger.

 

[Jammin]

I just rolled credits on my first play through. Took me 78 hours total and I barely scratched the surface in like half the zones. Beat it at level 19.

There is a sequence after the credits roll that I don't understand at all though. Not even a little bit. When one of you guys get there I'm curious if you'll be able to make sense of it.

I can kinda understand the complaints about the story better now. The stories in the zones themselves were great, I thought. But the big one with breach didn't seem quite right. In Dragon Age Origins you build this big alliance and then use it in a huge battle. Inquisition nails the building up the alliance part but stumbles when it came time to use it. It leaves the feeling that there might have been more planned and they just ran out of time.

It's still a great game though. And one I'll probably play through again on Nightmare at some point.

 

[SharkBait]

only level 19? I was aiming to get much higher than that so my inquisitor can have more skills. I also want more of those perks. IF I replayed Id definitely try to get that deft hands perk first.

 

[Jammin]

only level 19? I was aiming to get much higher than that so my inquisitor can have more skills. I also want more of those perks. IF I replayed Id definitely try to get that deft hands perk first.

I had reloaded my game to make my main character a knight enchanter. So he could pretty much win all fights by himself. I killed four dragons then made a set of masterwork gear out of all dragon parts. My accessories were all crit boosting too so i had a 40% chance to do 1,500 damage with spirit blade. 4,000 against barriers or armor. And 30% of that gets turned into barrier. Corypheus stood absolutely no chance.

I'd just cast the AOE slow time and then cut everything to pieces.

 

[zelllogan]

I beat the 10 dragons. I'm around level 22 (after 65h). Last dragon is significantly stronger than the others. It's the last one of the 3 dragons in the Icy region. But still, once you reach him, you are also a lot stronger ... In the end, my most difficult dragon fight was my first one at level 12 but still all of them were a nice challenge. I had also a lot of trouble with Vinsomer from StormCoast.

Now I'm completely overpowered. The loot for the last 3 dragons was very good for me, on par with dragon crafted material.
I still have countless sidequests to do but I don't really see the point as I won't get any stronger.

I will finish the main story likely tomorrow.

---------- Post added November 30, 2014 at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was November 29, 2014 at 12:57 PM ----------

I ended the game just now and I now understand why Jammin was waiting for us to finish. Massive spoiler ahead

Spoiler

The main quest was not great. But the last half is better due to the presence of my fav character of the 3 dragon age: Morrigan.
The exchange between her, her son and Flemeth gave me fangasms. Flemeth being Mythal is the best scenaristic moment of the game

About the ending, I didn't understand a lot about everything involving Solas. Post credit scene clarified a little bit about who Solas really is. I reminded talk about the wolf divinity. I searched a little and this should clarify the ending:

Solas is the Dread Wolf "Fen'Harel".
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Fen'Harel

Solas apparently killed Flemeth but that doesn't mean anything in this game as Flemeth always find a way to come back anyway.
What is sure is that Solas absorbed the soul from both Mythal and Kieran (Urthemiel). So, Solas should now be extremely strong and will probably be the main vilain of the next dragon age. I don't know what is his goal but he sure is not ok with humans ruling the world. The story about the ending of the elf civilisation doesn't seem to be accurate ...

About my choices during the game:
- I saved the mages instead of the templars
- I let Hawke gave his life.
- Briala is in power. Celene is dead.
- I let Morrigan drink the source. I'm happy my character didn't drink it ...

 

[Doraku]

By the way guys, is there any way to

Spoiler: Dragon Age Inquisition

Prevent either Cassandra and Leliana to be elected as the new Divine? In my first Enchanter Knight playthrough, I rejected Leliana's ambition to be a new divine, but during the epilogue, it seems such result is unavoidable.

 

[Jammin]

By the way guys, is there any way to

Spoiler: Dragon Age Inquisition

Prevent either Cassandra and Leliana to be elected as the new Divine? In my first Enchanter Knight playthrough, I rejected Leliana's ambition to be a new divine, but during the epilogue, it seems such result is unavoidable.

I think that might be bugged or something. In my play through....

Spoiler

I was backing Leliana the whole way and for some reason Vivianne ended up becoming the new Divine. Which is something I don't recall ever advocating in any way.

---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:45 PM ----------

It's not too surprising to me that there would be a bug in the plot flags considering the number of bizarre bugs I've encountered playing. It's a great game but it's going to be much better if Bioware can get it patched up in the next few months.

The reigning champ for weirdest bug I've encountered is when, just after you meet Hawke for the first time, my character voice changed from the deeper voice to the heavily accented one. That one is just odd.

 

[Shinsatsu]

AAA games these days are FULL of bugs. I have a broken save file thanks to the weirdest bug in the world.
I load the game and die instantly for no reason. Explain this lol ^^

 

[zelllogan]

Da:i is especially buggy. I had two crashes with my ps4 and many problems with dialogues with characters staying stuck on a sentence for a minute or so.

 

[Shinsatsu]

Da:i is especially buggy. I had two crashes with my ps4 and many problems with dialogues with characters staying stuck on a sentence for a minute or so.

Ass ass ins creed was worse IMO. and I spelled it that on purpose because it was the worst. Huge step back from the previous title.