40 réponses à ce sujet

[taine]

Hi all. I just finished playing through the new DLC, so I figured I would post impressions for people that are "On the fence" as it were. I will try to avoid any spoilers, though there's not really much in the way of plot. Since the DLC is mainly combat focused, that is what I'll mostly talk about. If you are looking for something heavy on story or character development, you're looking in the wrong place.

I played on hard mode, so some of my comments might not be valid if you are playing normal. 

I went into the module with a level 35 Rogue from the end of Awakening. There was no gear that was anywhere near as good as anything you can find in the expansion, but I don't think that's really the point, since you can't carry it back with you.

The story of the module, such as it is, is pretty threadbare. I suppose it serves its purpose, which is to get you into a lot of difficult battles. The environments are reused from Kal'Hirol in Awakening with a lot of modifications, and the atmosphere can be rather creepy. The new companions get a little bit of face time, but don't really get fleshed out at all. They are mostly there as cannon fodder. 

When they said that this module is extremely challenging, the devs are half right. Most of the encounters are trivial, but there are some which are really hard. And I don't mean hard in the sense of requiring good tactics to win, I just mean ludicrously stacked against you. I'm talking six orange golems at once stacked against you. In most of the challenging battles your companions will die within about 10 seconds, so I hope you have a very powerful character and a lot of potions. This might have been due to my being at the level cap and enemies scaling up. That said, other than the hordes of golems (which are just silly, and a horrible design) most of the combat is pretty fun and gratifying. 

The final battle is by far the most difficult fight in all of DA, partly because of the mediocre party composition forced on you, and partly because the boss is just totally unfair. SNK fighting game boss level unfair. I won't spoil it, but I'll just say that you will need to make good use of everything at your disposal to win at the higher difficulties. 

In summation, it is a fun two hour romp, with a bunch of well designed combat encounters, and a few really badly designed ones. Whether it is worth getting for you probably depends on how much you want to play your warden again, and how much you enjoy DA's combat. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it was fun to get to play around with my supah-Warden again. The relative dearth of dialogue and story was a bit disappointing, but it was basically as advertised so it is hard to complain too much. 

[Mister_Shepard]

would it be a spoiler if you could reveal the reward you get that ports to your Origins/Awakening character?
Very good review btw.. 

Modifié par Mister_Shepard, 11 août 2010 - 07:33 .

[Dave of Canada]

Mister_Shepard wrote...

would it be a spoiler if you could reveal the reward you get that ports to your Origins/Awakening character?
Very good review btw.. 

*If you don't want a spoiler of the reward, don't read*

I've recieved an amazing mage belt, although I heard there's a few other goodies (nothing I noticed though).

[marquiseondore]

You get a belt, mace and amulet.

[Lost-brain]

Sounds like it's challenging... Interesting.

[Frumyfrenzy]

I do agree with this review, did my playthrough on hard too with a lvl 35 rogue. The room with those golems I didn't bother keeping my party alive, since they would die anyway. The most annoying thing for me was that I couldn't park my party and trigger a fight I knew was coming, because using a switch instantly teleported your companions to your position. That's a no go. Aside from this I really liked this DLC, I just wish it had been accessible from within the campaign like Return to Ostagar. It felt good to see my warden again!



My personal suggestions for future DLC (what I'd like to see and to be improved)::

- Integrate DLC into the main game (memory-DLC could start by talking to their owners) so you can choose when to do it in a normal playthrough, no more new campaigns if not neccessary

- 3-4 hours instead of 1-2 hours

- introduce a character(s) in one DLC and re-use them in future DLC in a greater storyline

- develop stories taking several DLC to come to an end

- hint events, plots, places, characters for DA2

[marquiseondore]

I found this very difficult on Nightmare. I imported my Warden from a Korcari Wilds save. Boy was I grateful for the new Leliana's song armor. I intended to keep all party members alive which extended my game play. Eventually I abandoned that mode, as it was completely futile. My only grip was a few CTD's when I had the upper hand in battle.

[hydroxyde]

So, BioWare got bored of people saying the DLCs were short and threw together something where people would die a lot to make it seem longer.

Poor effort.

[taine]

hydroxyde wrote...

So, BioWare got bored of people saying the DLCs were short and threw together something where people would die a lot to make it seem longer.
Poor effort.

I wouldn't say that. It's not all *that* hard. I only had to reload twice. 

I think what it most reminded me of was the Dorn's Deep section of Icewind Dale.

It also revealed some essential design weaknesses with the difficulty curve of DA's combat. More specifically, it showed that the only way to make it challenging at really high levels with the current design and available enemies is to make it cheesy-difficult. Like 4-6 golems wiping your party instantly with Hurl and Slam. Although I did like the boss a lot. 

[AntiChri5]

Playing on Nightmare with a level 35 dual wielding warrior, up to the final battle.



The main source of the difficulty is the party you are given.



Warrior, Rouge, "something".



The "something" is the only member of your party wich can revive, but it cant be healed with potions so is usually the first to go.



Half the difficulty would disapear with a mage.

[Pedrak]

Playing with a new character (level 20), as I'm trying to do, is probably not a good idea.



Another thing: IMHO difficult fights should be balanced by a varied party from which the player can choose those more adequate to his playing style, to the class of his own character, etc.



Ex. BG2 and ID2 had some obnoxiously difficult battles, but you had access to a large "cast" of party members (fixed in BG2, created by you in ID2), so the encounters felt more balanced because you had more control on the overall strategy - "who do I bring with me?". This is missing here.

[Hulk Hsieh]

Are the repec tomes available?
Lv 35 companions that level-up by default will be a tragedy.

Modifié par Hulk Hsieh, 11 août 2010 - 10:20 .

[Rvlion]

Played with a level 35 rogue from awakening with equipment from both Origins and Awakening.

Have to admitt that I played my first run on Easy and will try to aim higher for the achievement, but to be perfectly honest I just didnt enjoy it one bit.

Without being to spoilery my warden is cool, strong and nearly invincible, while my party went down almost every step of the way even on Easy mode.

Comparing a particular party member from this DLC with another DLC is just to cry about.



All in all review on easy mode.

- Re-used landscapes from origins (Ortan Thaig) and Awakening.

- A lot of running around for me trying to find out what to do.

- Companions who can barely hit their opponents.

- If you don't like the fade in Origins... Have fun with this.



I agree with a previous statement that this dlc was better suited as add-on to the main campaign of Origins during your stay Orzammar as side-quest (like you have Levi Dryden in your camp waiting for you) instead of a seperate story.

[Rvlion]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

Are the repec tomes available?
Lv 35 companions that level-up by default will be a tragedy.

At a certain point I noticed that I had a "Tome of the First Warden" in my inventory, which allowes you to respec 1 character only.

[Kail Ashton]

lol i mostly cheated and swaped to hard mode before the boss fight to get the trophy, which by the way is quite hard, if only cause it becomes a orange name gang stomping, i went in thankfully with my human tank warden, pretty much maxed out from awakening

The final fights a pain on hard mode if your companions die early as you will just get swarmed, lost the 1st fight but the 2nd try i kept everyone alive (at the cost of most my potions...stupid magic golem wasn't much help & sir pounce-alot doesn't work in the DLC apparantly)

Oh and while the dialouge options are slim, it does at one point at least bring up stuff from origins, in that i had sided with branka on this charecter (try'n to max out my options going into DA2) and Jarrick will discuss branka and why her avenue of golem craft isn't being pursued

Modifié par Kail Ashton, 11 août 2010 - 10:53 .

[Artemis_Entrari]

taine wrote...
 If you are looking for something heavy on story or character development, you're looking in the wrong place.

The story of the module, such as it is, is pretty threadbare. I suppose it serves its purpose, which is to get you into a lot of difficult battles.

In summation, it is a fun two hour romp, with a bunch of well designed combat encounters, and a few really badly designed ones. Whether it is worth getting for you probably depends on how much you want to play your warden again, and how much you enjoy DA's combat. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it was fun to get to play around with my supah-Warden again. The relative dearth of dialogue and story was a bit disappointing, but it was basically as advertised so it is hard to complain too much. 

This is really disappointing.  I was looking forward to this DLC, but now I doubt I'll even buy it.

If I wanted to play games based around a lot of combat, I'd play some kind of action game.  I play DA and RPG in general because I like the story and roleplaying element of it.  If that's not there, what's the point?

Wake me when either DA2 is ready, or when DLC is released that actually adds STORY elements, not just one more endless parade of fighting.

[bzombo]

Kail Ashton wrote...

lol i mostly cheated and swaped to hard mode before the boss fight to get the trophy, which by the way is quite hard, if only cause it becomes a orange name gang stomping, i went in thankfully with my human tank warden, pretty much maxed out from awakening

The final fights a pain on hard mode if your companions die early as you will just get swarmed, lost the 1st fight but the 2nd try i kept everyone alive (at the cost of most my potions...stupid magic golem wasn't much help & sir pounce-alot doesn't work in the DLC apparantly)

Oh and while the dialouge options are slim, it does at one point at least bring up stuff from origins, in that i had sided with branka on this charecter (try'n to max out my options going into DA2) and Jarrick will discuss branka and why her avenue of golem craft isn't being pursued

i sided with caridin and got that dialog too. i think it's universal, but still cool that there's a connection to origins.

[Frumyfrenzy]

Artemis_Entrari wrote...
If I wanted to play games based around a lot of combat, I'd play some kind of action game.  I play DA and RPG in general because I like the story and roleplaying element of it.  If that's not there, what's the point?

Wake me when either DA2 is ready, or when DLC is released that actually adds STORY elements, not just one more endless parade of fighting. 

I think the story/combat time ratio is fine. What doesn't do the depth of DA:O justice is the shallow characters and short stories because DLC is short itself. You can't have something memorable and deep in 1-2 hours playtime this way. There are several  solutions I can think of, if you want DLC AND memorable characters/story:

- make DLC considerably longer, i.e. 3-4 hours instead of 1-2
- re-use characters and flesh them out over the course of several smaller DLC
- released subsequent DLC building story-/characterwise on each other
- introduce characters/story elemtents foreshadowing events related to DA2 
- any combination of the above

[Haexpane]

Good review.



people asking for 4 hour long DLC are ignoring the fact that NO RPG releases 4 hour long DLC for $5. It's an unrealistic request.



People asked for harder combat, Bioware gave it to them. STill people complain that they can't romance Golems or the story isn't 10 hours long.



I DL'd it but haven't touched it yet. Sounds decent, although I'm bummed at the crap reward items.

[Frumyfrenzy]

Haexpane wrote...

Good review.

people asking for 4 hour long DLC are ignoring the fact that NO RPG releases 4 hour long DLC for $5. It's an unrealistic request.

People asked for harder combat, Bioware gave it to them. STill people complain that they can't romance Golems or the story isn't 10 hours long.

I DL'd it but haven't touched it yet. Sounds decent, although I'm bummed at the crap reward items.

Who said that there has to be more content for the same price? Further, they could go with the current length and price but still avoid having shallow characters/extremely short stories compared to the original Dragon Age, which is a main complaint. I made some suggestions above.

As for the difficulty, there are good hard fights. The only hard fights (which caused me to shake my head in disbelief) I would complain involved several golems and a party-teleport. Basically, your group is teleported to the same spot (for no obvious reason), 1-2 golems instantly hurl, 3 other approach and slam or earthquake. This results in dead companions, no matter what, because you are chain-stunned to death. Thanks to the teleport into ne spot you cannot prepare. The other hard fights (several revenants, endboss) were good.  

[Zy-El]

You expect them to re-use characters - there's actually a very limited pool of availability:

Oghren - already seen enough of the drunken dwarf in Awakening

Morrigan - no longer a valid companion choice as she has left

Sten, Leliana, Zevran, Dog, Alistair, Shale - may not be available depending on player choices made during Origins

Velanna, Nathaniel, Anders, Sigrun, Justice - will not be available if player didn't install Awakening or else not available due to player choices made during Awakening

Tug - Dead

Sketch - only if you bought Leliana's Song

Which old companions would you expect to see in a $5 DLC? They're not going to hire VA's and generate scenes for characters who the Warden may not have hired or personally killed or who were killed due to the choices the Warden previously made. Oghren is the only one we're guaranteed may rejoin our party and personally, I've seen enough of the foul, drunk dwarf to last me a lifetime. Morrigan is an outside choice since she definitely survives Origins but I think they're keeping her as an NPC for a different DLC.

[Zeleen]

I think Nathaniel will return.. which would be.. good.

I'm in the DLC to about 45 min.  so far so good.  2 companions so far.. started with new character.. will probably be better with higher level PC so will probably re-play.

Modifié par Zeleen, 11 août 2010 - 07:56 .

[Flash Aron]

... just finished it at normal, with my DAO,Awakening ... Fighter Lev35 ... till the end it was only once a problem ... with that 6 golems, I even outmoved them and attacked from outside (use the switches and attack from outside)



the endfight was not so good for my fighter char ... I tried it 4 times before I reskilled the two NPCS to archers, with that tomes from awakening (I had 10) ... after that it was somehow really easy and I managed it with the first try !



Played over 5 hours , as I try to read all and examine everthing I find !



Anyway not what I want from a RPG ... I really would like more story and riddles !

[Frumyfrenzy]

Zy-El wrote...

You expect them to re-use characters - there's actually a very limited pool of availability:
Oghren - already seen enough of the drunken dwarf in Awakening
Morrigan - no longer a valid companion choice as she has left
Sten, Leliana, Zevran, Dog, Alistair, Shale - may not be available depending on player choices made during Origins
Velanna, Nathaniel, Anders, Sigrun, Justice - will not be available if player didn't install Awakening or else not available due to player choices made during Awakening
Tug - Dead
Sketch - only if you bought Leliana's Song
Which old companions would you expect to see in a $5 DLC? They're not going to hire VA's and generate scenes for characters who the Warden may not have hired or personally killed or who were killed due to the choices the Warden previously made. Oghren is the only one we're guaranteed may rejoin our party and personally, I've seen enough of the foul, drunk dwarf to last me a lifetime. Morrigan is an outside choice since she definitely survives Origins but I think they're keeping her as an NPC for a different DLC.

As I said, they should go ahead and introduce new characters, but 1-2 hours 'air time' isn't enough to give them distinct and perceivable personalities. Therefore they could return in the following DLC and continue their story. This way they get background comparable to characters from Origins. 

Modifié par Frumyfrenzy, 11 août 2010 - 08:52 .

[Zy-El]

Introducing new characters in one DLC and expecting them to return in the "next" DLC would not necessarily work either. What if players don't buy all the DLC?

Mind you - it would be an incentive to players buying all the DLC if the same companions would return. For example, Sketch the Elven mage could return in a followup DLC even if Leliana is not there; they could simply re-hire the same VA.