:smack:
I can’t believe I didn’t realize that. Just in the past hour, I was like “Oh, Cassandra has these same two extra staffs that my main character has. Wonder how she got those?”
Yes, I’m an idiot.
So SKyhold…
Jeebus, it’s huge! I spent most of my play time today exploring it and talking to NPC’s. Nice place.
And dat lightning in the Mire. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ti done so well in a game, and it scared the beejesus out of me the first time too!
One word of warning. Some things that the game puts in Valuables are useful to the elf that is researching creatures. Check with her before selling them.
Yeah, all the things that sell for 1g are actually research materials. Why the game thinks it is a great idea to put them in the “sell all this junk” category nobody knows.
If you aren’t already consider playing the game with headphones on.
At least do so if your sound card has the ability to do “virtual surround” sound (pretty common these days but not all sound systems do it). Set the virtual surround to 6-speakers (or 5.1 or Dolby Virtual Speakers) and set the audio in-game to “Home Theater”.
This simulates positional audio really well (better than you might think) and will work with any pair of headphones. That said you probably want something better than your iPhone’s ear buds for this.
The game really does a good job with expansive sound spaces. As you are running around and people are talking the audio position changes. Even just spinning the camera while in a dialog does it. Pretty neat stuff.
Of course if you have an actual 5.1 (or better) speaker setup then no need to do this.
Yeah, I always try to remember to go touch the research table on each trip back to the main base.
Question though…what does turning research in do? I have turned in all sorts of things and I am not clear what that actually does for me in game. It takes my stuff but then what?
Forgot to add…
If your soundcard does not already have the ability to do virtual surround you can download Razer Surround - 7.1 Gaming Surround Sound which will add this ability. I have not used the Razer version (my soundcard already has Dolby’s version) but I think it’d definitely be worth a try.
There is a free version and a “Pro” version that costs money. Up to you which you’d want but I’d suggest giving the free version a whirl first.
I just read that there reportedly is a glitch/bug in the game which limits party banter. I’m not sure if I have it but seems I might.
I get some banter but not a lot and I keep wishing for more while others complain their party won’t shut up. Indeed I was going to post here asking for opinions on good party combos for good banter.
Bummer…
When you hand in stuff, you get some influence. As the total number of “same” items you hand in increase (wolf fangs, etc) you get a bonus against that monster type. You’ll see a message like:
Turned in 3 demon talons
Additional damage against demons
I have no idea what the actual increases are or if they’re significant but I hand everything in just for the influence and cause I’m always hitting Haven/Skyhold anyway.
The Reddit link said that banter should be about every 15 minutes which sounds right for me. Pretty much anyone interacting with The Iron Bull is good times. On the other hand, All Vivianne does is bitch and insult the other companions which gets old in a hurry.
Also, dragon mothers are the worst mothers in the world. Why do so many games have a “fight the dragonlings” phase in their dragon fights? “Oh, crap, these guys are really tough. I’m going to throw my toddlers at them for a while”. Even crack-moms practice better parenting than that.
It’s nature’s way to keep the population under control 
I have a bad habit of sticking with the original party makeup, and so have been running with Solas/Cassandra/Varric for most of the game. Solas is fairly quiet most of the time, but the banter between Cassandra and Varric is always good for a laugh. There’s been a lot of banter and I haven’t gotten any repeats yet.
I had the same problem in DA:O. They start you with a warrior, mage and rogue so why switch any of them out?
I mean, there ARE reasons (specializations, unlocking dialogue and quests, building friendship for the stat increases) but my default state of mind was “Well, the band’s all together, let’s kill stuff.”
I also tend to go with the first characters I meet in these type of games. Since I always play a Mage, the first Fighter type you meet is generally with me until the bitter end.
Same thing with DA2, I always seem to end up using Avaline, Anders, and Varric for 90% of it. There’s no point investing much time building up Bethany/Carver, Isabella’s not as good in combat as Avaline or a rogue Hawke, Fenris is annoying, and Merill’s best spells were the blood magic ones cast from hit points so she was easy pickings for the bad guys.
The most tedious aspect of the game right now is inventory management with a game pad. I don’t know how you solve it, but there’s got to be a better way!
And although switching to mouse and keybaord to do this is way better, it’s still mired with this 10 foot UI and lists of items that you need to scroll in order to see more than the first 5 items.
My kingdom for a Diablo mouse and keyboard 3 UI! Managing loot in that game is a joy! in like 10 seconds I know what items I’m keeping and which ones are getting sold. Takes me 10 minutes to do that in this game.
Plus it does this annoying thing where the cursor jumps to the top of the list each time you sell something. So if you have a list like:
Sweet Armor
Junk Armor 1
Junk Armor 2
Junk Armor 3
…each time you sell it jumps back to Sweet Armor and I have to go back down to sell the next item. Very annoying. Luckily, the Buyback feature means it never results in a disaster but annoying anyway.
Maybe this is a place where the console is just different from the PC. The inventory management on the PS4 isn’t a big deal, so long as I remember to sort by item type.
My bigger complaint is that you can’t manipulate the inventory from inside the crafting menu, so if I’m making a new item and want to check the stats of an existing item I have to leave the crafting system and go into the inventory system. You also can’t move equipment around while you’re buying stuff.
I am like this and had to force myself out of it.
In my quest to get more (and different) banter I made a point of mixing up my squad. For a long time I kept going to my A-Team (me [mage], Varric [dual wielding daggers], Casandra [crowd control warrior], Iron Bull [DPS warrior]).
I have to say I am pleasantly surprised and found pretty good success. I re-specced Varric back to a crossbow wielding trap guy (given his specialty tree) and use Cole as a dual-dagger dude (totally pimped him out with the best daggers I could make…he’s pretty devastating).
Dorian’s specialty skills come in real handy for crowd control.
Sera is a pretty bad ass archer.
Vivienne really surprised me in how well her (forget what it is called…green spec mage) abilities work.
About the only one I utterly ignore is Solas (since I am a mage Vivienne and Dorian fill out that roster well enough). I also have only minor use for Blackwall although he does well too.
My only let down is Cole is utterly silent…not sure if he is meant to be that way or my game is glitched per the bug mentioned up-thread.
In short, changing up your team can be fun and the other members can work well…surprisingly well. Still amazed at how well my Vivienne team works (Blackwall and Varric are the other two). Totally expected that team to be a bust but I wanted to hear Varric/Vivienne banter and needed Blackwall for some Warden stuff. They actually work well.
Cole should be speaking. I mainly heard him talk to The Iron Bull when he was in my party vs whoever my mage was at the time but Cole definitely does speak. His own banter is nothing special but The Iron Bull’s responses are pretty good. Amusingly dry towards a guy who is reading his mind.