This spoiler is only for those who have completed the main storyline. Seriously, don’t click this if you haven’t finished the game.
How cool is it that Solas is the Dread Wolf? I’m doing my second playthrough now and there are some hints about his true nature that are a lot more evident now that I know his secret. At one point early on, he says something to the effect of, “people in this age are so untrusting.” A bit later, he says four words to a Dalish elf which convinces her to turn over an amulet of power to the party. Very cool stuff.
Thanks for the warning JohnnyBravo. I’ve been clicking spoiler boxes indescriminately, and saw something else I shouldn’t have. Oh well. lol
Has anyone got into the crafting system? I was picturing I’d make the individual parts for a sword say, like the hilt, blade and handle for instance, and then craft them in to a sword of awesomeness. But it seems this isnt the case. The individual parts are for upgrading looted armour only it seems? It looks like if I make a complete item from scratch it has no upgrade slots to further improve it.
Crafted armor and weapons have upgrade slots to them. Depends on the item, for instance bows only have a grip to upgrade while mage staffs have a grip and bottom spike/blade. You can craft upgrades such as “Spiked pommel” or “thick hilt” or sometimes you find them on looted gear and can strip them off.
Have you actually crafted a sword and it had no upgrade slots? That seems weird to me but maybe there’s cheapo schematics that don’t include the slots. All of my crafted weaponry is definitely upgraded.
I need to congratulate the devs on the awesome dragon fights. As I was doing one last night, I paid attention to how the dragon moved, turned to look at targets, would rear/shuffle itself backwards while it breathed to keep you from just staying under its head, the way it kicks and trashes to get you out from under it, etc. When you’re banging against its leg and it turns to look at you, you can just feel the “Who the hell do you think you are, tiny man?” in its mind. A lot of work must have gone into those fights/animations and it shows.
I guess Dark Souls does it similar but I never really got into that game. Compared to the dragon fights in Skyrim though, DA:I is pretty amazing.
All of my Tier 2 armor has upgrade slots but I also have a lot of schematics I never use because they’re lower armor rating or some other issue. Heck, maybe I saw they didn’t have an upgrade slot and never used them for that reason.
Inquisition is quite different from Origins in combat style anyway. More action rpg, which personally I’m not crazy about.
Main differences are:
In Origins you pause and tell your character to attack a mob, then switch to another chanracter and issue orders, repeat for each chracter. Each character will then chase down the mob ir attack from range, or use whatever special ability you specified. You can play unpaused if you like, but I prefer to pause and see what’s going on at the time.
In Inquisition there are 2 play modes: action and pause/tactical cam. In action your controlled character attacks only when you specifiy and will not chase down it’s target. You need to steer it over to melee range and hold down a key to attack. In tactical it plays slightly closer to Origins, in that your character will chase down it’s target. You can use this paused mode to place locations for AOE attacks too, rather than trying to do it live.
ETA I should add I’m finding the action combat much easier than Origins as well.
I find myself in a situations where I’m outnumbered and outgunned nearly every battle.
I had a bunch of healing potions or whatever they’re called and I had to tell everyone in my group to take one if they get below 25% just to survive the battles and now I’m out of healing.
Maybe I need to do more side quests to build up my group?
Here’s another question - I’m currently in a castle and most of the rooms have a smaller entrance chamber before the main entrance.
Do I want to hold my group at the bottleneck so I can deal with one or two foes at a time instead of charging into the room to take out the whole enemy party?
Am I being too aggressive?
ETA - sorry for the hijack - I’ll stop now.
Check your mage crowd control. For example an early one is Cone of Cold. You can freeze multiple enemies for a bit while your fighters take care of them one by one. Later you get sleep and paralyze, which can take out several mobs for most of the combat.
Hijack away - I’m guessing nearly everyone in this thread right now has fond memories of Origins. Certainly I do.
If you’re in a castle and it’s the relatively early game, you are in Redcliffe, right? You could also be in the Circle Tower, but if you were you’d have access to a different way of healing your party and wouldn’t be worried about running short on potions.
If I’m right and you’re already in Redcliffe Castle, you won’t be able to leave to go find other party members (well, you CAN, but you definitely don’t want to), so you probably have Morrigan, Alistair, Leliana, Sten, and the Dog.
So: make sure your party includes Alistair, Morrigan, Dog, and yourself. Leave Sten and Leliana behind; both are too fragile in the early game to survive in the close quarters. As you move through the castle, establish a safe zone in a modestly sized cleared room. Set up Alistair and Dog near the door and Morrigan a bit back from them. Tell everyone to hold still. Go tease out a couple of creatures with your main character, get them to chase you back to your deathtrap. When your targets come through the door, tell your party to move freely. Make sure Alistair is doing everything he can to draw attention (he has abilities in his tree that are designed for that). He and Dog will soak up damage and keep Morrigan sniping and freezing people. Use your main to target the enemy that’s closest to death and kill them quickly.
Whatever you do, do not leave Redcliffe and don’t try to level yourself up artificially; the enemies get stronger as you do, and without the resource you’ll pick up in the Circle Tower you won’t be able to keep pace.
Eventually you will come to a wide open area and encounter a very difficult enemy.
Tell your party to hold still BEFORE the difficult enemy notices you. Using only your main character, run quickly to your left - you’ll see a gate, and a lever to open it. Open the gate, then run away like a rabbit back to your party and let what happens next start to play out before you get involved.
Wait! If you’re already in the castle, you can leave town without severe consequence. So if you’re really getting stuck, leave and go to the Circle Tower. What you’ll pick up there will quite dramatically change the shape of your future fights.
Another thing to consider that may pass people new to RPGs in general is remember to level up your characters, assign skills, and give them upgraded armour.
zoid, if it is any consolation DA:O (especially the early parts) was hard on Normal for me, a lot harder than DA:I is on Hard. You’d think they could keep the difficulties a bit closer to the norm within the same game series. Civilization can do it across five games that span 20 years, these guys make three games and the difficulty just keeps on changing.
You have to find or buy it. You’ve probably noticed how weapons and armor are made of different materials and have tier numbers? The tiers go from 1-7 with 7 being the best quality, and it’s never a bad idea to load your guys up with the best you can afford.
Later on you can find fancy armor pieces that have stat bonuses, healing bonuses, stuff like that, but they aren’t common and there’s no way to enhance a piece of armor on its own. You can add runes to some weapons but not armor.
I can’t imagine a world in which people on the internet are mad because they’re asked to talk about Dragon Age: Origins
Do you have the Ultimate edition with the DLC? If so, both Return to Ostagar and Warden’s Keep have sets of fine armor that can give you a bit of a boost. “Get fancy powerful armor for your level” is a common selling point of DLC, after all. Warden’s Keep is accessed by talking to some guy hanging around your camp site and Return to Ostagar is, naturally, accessed by returning to the initial fortress where the battle was lost.
There’s also a bunch of free promotional DLC items you can get that could help in the early part of the game.
