161 réponses à ce sujet

[Paynejb]

Heya guys! I was in the UK team for the competition. We lost out, sadly. In terms of actual points, we were 3rd overall, though due to that bothersome xbox challenge we were pushed down the 5th. Chris did a good job, just rolled some unlucky dice. It was alot of fun, congratulations to Hungary on their victory. Congratulations to Canada too, managing to survive being eliminated every single time until the last one!

I dont know, if anyone wants to ask any questions about the game, feel free? I'll avoid spoilers, gameplay is probably the better thing to ask right now.

Modifié par Paynejb, 29 octobre 2009 - 05:29 .

[Paynejb]

No questions at all?

[SheffSteel]

Just give us your impressions - spoiler free (thank you). What struck you as strong/weak about the game?

Also, to put that in context, where are you coming from as a gamer / RPGer / Bioware fan?

Modifié par SheffSteel, 29 octobre 2009 - 05:34 .

[Skeetles]

I have a question.



Haha you lost, what a noob.

[Rakirian1985]

I got a question regarding the difficulty of the game you guys played through. As far as I understand it when playing at the PC's it was on normal and when in elimination challanges it was set as hard?



Here is the question: When you played the game, did you find it to be above "normal" really when it came to difficulties? I ask this since the footage we could see was not that great in length in one go but it seemed like a lot of the boss fights were indeed very difficult.



Thanks for popping in here btw to answer questions about the game and your experiance regarding it. Hope it was a blast for you and all the others who were there as(or hopefully more) it was for us watching it online!

[boiga]

Hey, congrats on the play and thanks for answering questions.



1. How does level up actually work? How many skills / talents are allocated each level and does this differ by class?



2. Any comments about the relative efficacy of various builds? Is it worthwhile to shapeshift? Are backstabbing rogues useful in combat? Is archery under/overpowered? Is it necessary to have a healing focused mage in every party? Which class pulled you through tough battles the most often?



3. What were the most useful spells or talents for each class? Did spell combos ever actually come in handy? Were there any talents that became the bread and butter tactic for winning most battles, or did you have to constantly reevaluate what talent to use every encounter?



Thanks again.

[ashdrake1]

Can you just give us your impressions of the game? Give us a large write up on gameplay, story and the NPC's.

[Chikkenstorm]

Who did you like better, Leliana or Morrigan

[CJohnJones]

How important was healing. I mean, did you need a dedicated healer or would a mage who can toss off a heal or two sufficient?

[Paynejb]

SheffSteel wrote...

Just give us your impressions - spoiler free (thank you). What struck you as strong/weak about the game?

Also, to put that in context, where are you coming from as a gamer / RPGer / Bioware fan?

I'm quite an avid gamer / RPGer / Bioware fan, so I think I can do a good description justice.

Well, we all thoroughly enjoyed it, first and foremost. Everything we heard about the difficulty was true, on normal this was a brutal experience. Although, we didn't have time to maximise our equipment or do every little quest that gave us the increments of experience, so perhaps that's why it was so hard! Given time to explore further, we probably would have had an easier time than we did. I mean, we were going without any potions for far too long.

Quick saving is essential, we were reloading alot, as were everyone playing this. There are just some very hard areas that require a specific strategy, and a bit of luck on the side too. Once we found the right tactics though, bosses and encounters went down easily enough. It was a very satisfying thing indeed!

Without spoiling anything in terms of story, I'll go as far as to say that the Fade is a very, very bothersome place. It's the reason we were knocked down from 2nd place to 5th, we entered it without any potions, and the whole place is a puzzle/backtracking venture. It was more than difficult, and unfortunately we spent far too long trying to get through it and finish it, resulting in us getting too far behind to ever catch up.

The only thing I can think of when it comes to weaknesses with this game is that we came across a few bugs here and there, enough to notice that they were common. Our game never crashed, but the bugs did affect gameplay quite alot. Enemies not responding to being attacked etc., an event not being triggered so we spent ages fighting this onslaught of darkspawn for no reason, not exactly game-breaking, but a slight annoyance.

As far as strengths go, I think everything shines in this game. The combat is very fun and satisfying, of course we couldn't explore many options, we went purely for DPS and a healer on the side, but that did the job for this event. Little was paid attention to the story, but I am sure looking forward to getting stuck into that when the game comes out and I dont have a time limit!

[Paynejb]

Skeetles wrote...

I have a question.

Haha you lost, what a noob.

Yeah, I was a newbie at a game I never played before. Surprise surprise :T

[Cuuniyevo]

I'm wondering how much of the game you actually got to see and pay attention to, with the speed you were playing at. Did you read any of the codex entries or listen to any of the dialogue? I'm not asking for spoilers, I'm just wondering whether or not you got a good feel for the game. Also, was the game set at Normal? If so, how big of an impact was 50% friendly fire? Was it too easy, too hard, just right?

[Paynejb]

Rakirian1985 wrote...

I got a question regarding the difficulty of the game you guys played through. As far as I understand it when playing at the PC's it was on normal and when in elimination challanges it was set as hard?

Here is the question: When you played the game, did you find it to be above "normal" really when it came to difficulties? I ask this since the footage we could see was not that great in length in one go but it seemed like a lot of the boss fights were indeed very difficult.

Thanks for popping in here btw to answer questions about the game and your experiance regarding it. Hope it was a blast for you and all the others who were there as(or hopefully more) it was for us watching it online!

The PC's were on normal, yes, although as far as I know, so were the xbox challenges. I didn't actually have a go at elimination myself, though, but I couldn't say for sure what difficulty it was on. There was a few mods put onto it, for one, the main character could not die in the challenges.

Oh yes, the difficulty was indeed above 'normal', it proved a very challenging experience. That could just be down to us having to blaze through it as fast as we can, and not making sure we maximise equipment and level ups, but for how we were playing, it was brutal in places. Boss fights completely depended on your party. Poor team Spain, they didn't have a healer or any potions on a certain boss, and spent over an hour reloading and trying to beat it. However, when we faced the same boss with a healer, it was far easier. I guess it comes down to party set up really.

No problem, it's a pleasure! I loved every second of it, and hungry for more. It'd be nice not to play it under a time limit.

[ZackusMaximus1]

Without giving up spoilers, what was the most interesting/difficult fight you had? What tactics did you have to use to overcome it?

[The Halfman]

Firstly, congrats on getting so high in the rankings (whoo UK!)



Q1, Did you use shapeshifting at all and how usefull was it? I have some reservations about giveing up so much firepower and utility to run around and hit someone as a bear when surely a warrior could do so better.

[Sarevok Anchev]

So, a healer is a must have?



What about rogueskills(Traps, lockpick i.e.)? Were they necessary?

[Paynejb]

boiga wrote...

Hey, congrats on the play and thanks for answering questions.

1. How does level up actually work? How many skills / talents are allocated each level and does this differ by class?

2. Any comments about the relative efficacy of various builds? Is it worthwhile to shapeshift? Are backstabbing rogues useful in combat? Is archery under/overpowered? Is it necessary to have a healing focused mage in every party? Which class pulled you through tough battles the most often?

3. What were the most useful spells or talents for each class? Did spell combos ever actually come in handy? Were there any talents that became the bread and butter tactic for winning most battles, or did you have to constantly reevaluate what talent to use every encounter?

Thanks again.

Thanks, and I'll do my best to answer them competently!

1. Well, first of all there's 3 attribute points to boost stats with. Party members not in the current party also level up, so you can use all those stacked levels when you pick them up from the camp. It does differ by class, however, my colleague had all the sheets we were writing info down on, and I'm afraid I can only tell you what I remember! Skills were quite rare, they were not every other level as we speculated, although I couldn't say for sure what level we did get to boost them on. Talents however, yes. One every time you level up, always, every class. Sorry I didn't have the notes to tell you!

2. We stayed away from the particulars of shapeshifting, really. Whilst we did test it out, in the long run we preferred Morrigan just slinging spells around. Perhaps with more testing into the shapeshifting tree, it might improve, but we stayed for a DPS build with her. For archery, we decided to kick Morrigan out initially, and replace her with Leliana (We were going to grab Wynne next, planned to have her as our mage healer), so we gave her a bow and used her. You know, maybe we just used her completely wrong, because she just seemed to be a burden on our party. I'm certain we did, Rogues should be alot better than how we used her, and once we kicked her out and brought Morrigan back, we had a much easier time in battles.

HEALERS YES

Healing is a must-have. Team spain unforunately did not take a healer, and they sadly suffered alot for it. Wynne was our lifeline, and we decided to slap a basic heal on Morrigan for good measure, which did help greatly. Without a doubt, a dedicated healer we found to be most useful. You know, for the most useful class? I'd say, actually, the Dog. The dog was brutal, he is so fast and has some wicked abilities. Dread Howl stuns all around him, and a big range, which buys a few precious seconds to heal everyone or smack up the stunned enemies for some brutal damage, or even pull back if needed. However, apart from that, there was no single class that proved as useful as a healer, the rest worked together but never shined seperately.

3. When it comes to a Tank, our main character, Shield Pummel was a useful skill. It was a good strategy to use it to stun one enemy, and then chip away at his HP or others around, whilst dishing out Shield Bashes to further interrupt the action going on. The Tank's threaten was always useful, as well as the talents which boosted defence at the cost of attack, it was a good sink to have Wynne healing him as he soaked up the damage, with the dog delivering some Dread Howls around the whole group of enemies. We didn't reach many endgame skills of course, only getting to level ten.
As for spells, heal is a must have, on every mage, not only the main healer. It's just extremely useful to be able to slip off that cheap spell on an ally that needs it. We did stay away from the friendly fire spells, really, we felt that we didn't want to risk having that damage on our characters. We did fine enough with the first tier spells for a big chunk of the game, Winter's Grasp etc.
When it comes to spell combos, Sleep and Horror is a dangerous, dangerous combo. We didn't get to put it on our own person mage, but on the pre-loaded games on the xbox 360s, casting sleep on a group of enemies, then picking and choosing one to use horror on, deals an insane amount of damage for that point of the game. It was instant kill in the Tower of Ishal for those Genlocks. But of course, on our 24 hour game we didn't manage to get the spells we wanted to combo.

[tr0tsky]

Did you use Threaten/Taunt at all? How effective are they?

[Paynejb]

Chikkenstorm wrote...

Who did you like better, Leliana or Morrigan

Well, for damage, it was Morrigan. Simply because we didn't have ample time to explore what things a rogue could do which could be very damaging, we used Leliana and then realised it would be better to replace her with a damaging mage instead.

[Joel171]

Paynejb wrote...

Rakirian1985 wrote...

I got a question regarding the difficulty of the game you guys played through. As far as I understand it when playing at the PC's it was on normal and when in elimination challanges it was set as hard?

Here is the question: When you played the game, did you find it to be above "normal" really when it came to difficulties? I ask this since the footage we could see was not that great in length in one go but it seemed like a lot of the boss fights were indeed very difficult.

Thanks for popping in here btw to answer questions about the game and your experiance regarding it. Hope it was a blast for you and all the others who were there as(or hopefully more) it was for us watching it online!

The PC's were on normal, yes, although as far as I know, so were the xbox challenges. I didn't actually have a go at elimination myself, though, but I couldn't say for sure what difficulty it was on. There was a few mods put onto it, for one, the main character could not die in the challenges.

Oh yes, the difficulty was indeed above 'normal', it proved a very challenging experience. That could just be down to us having to blaze through it as fast as we can, and not making sure we maximise equipment and level ups, but for how we were playing, it was brutal in places. Boss fights completely depended on your party. Poor team Spain, they didn't have a healer or any potions on a certain boss, and spent over an hour reloading and trying to beat it. However, when we faced the same boss with a healer, it was far easier. I guess it comes down to party set up really.

No problem, it's a pleasure! I loved every second of it, and hungry for more. It'd be nice not to play it under a time limit.

Edit: nevermind you answered this while I was typing. 

Modifié par Joel171, 29 octobre 2009 - 06:10 .

[Paynejb]

CJohnJones wrote...

How important was healing. I mean, did you need a dedicated healer or would a mage who can toss off a heal or two sufficient?

Healing was desperately important. Team Spain got far behind due to not having a dedicated healer, and could not physically get past a certain boss at all. They were on it for far more than an hour, and still did not manage to beat it before being eliminated.

However, a dedicated healer was useful because potions were such in short supply. We didn't touch herbalism, knowing nothing about how it worked, and assumed potions would be sold alot in shops. Well, not only were they extremely expensive, there was always only 2 or 3 potions in stock. For what we found, a healer is definitely needed, unless potions can be found alot. Even then, having a mage who can use just a simple heal to supplement a party would do a world of good.

[Paynejb]

Cuuniyevo wrote...

I'm wondering how much of the game you actually got to see and pay attention to, with the speed you were playing at. Did you read any of the codex entries or listen to any of the dialogue? I'm not asking for spoilers, I'm just wondering whether or not you got a good feel for the game. Also, was the game set at Normal? If so, how big of an impact was 50% friendly fire? Was it too easy, too hard, just right?

To be honest, we did not pay much attention to the story. All of us in our team would far prefer to enjoy the story without being under such time constraints, and we did not read any of the codex entries. Too time consuming!

Although, from what we gathered it is very rich indeed. There are many, many of these codex entries, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into all this lore that is offered. Whilst I did not keenly follow the story, the events going on left me very curious as to what had led upto them. I'd say I got a good feel in a way, just that I really want to spend time listening to the NPCs alot more.

Yeah, the game was locked on normal for everyone.

We stayed away from friendly fire spells, really. We got the first level fire one, but never the huge AOE spells. Not sure if that was a good idea or not, but we were doing very well for the part we were on.

The game was never too easy, and never too hard. Some battles required reloading, but they were always within reach with the right tactics. I'd say, just right!

[Paynejb]

ZackusMaximus1 wrote...

Without giving up spoilers, what was the most interesting/difficult fight you had? What tactics did you have to use to overcome it?

I would say our most difficult fights were never the bosses themselves, but some of the brutal mobs of enemies that surface at some points.
Using choke points and blocking them with warrior/etc classes is essential, because having enemies running around in amongst your part is going to be cutting it very close in terms of victory.

Using corners was a good tactic as well. Enemies, including range, would have to run down a corridor/whatever to get you if you hid around a corner, causing them all to congregate in one small area. Perfect for an AOE spell or controlling aggro.

[boiga]

Wow, thanks much Paynejb. I'm going to have to rethink my party now.



One more question: Now that you've had an introduction to the game, what character/party are you planning on using for your first run through without a time limit?

[jrastaban]

First, many thanks for this thread! here are a few questions I had regarding your experiance.



Did you get to fiddle with the scripts for combat tactics or did you just use default AI. How much did you use the pause feature to micro manage abilities?



It sounds like you completely forgo a rogue most of the time for mage damage, did you find chests or doors that you had to pass up because of the inability to pick the locks, was this common?



Did you get to develop the coercion skill at all, if so did you find it helpful in story progression?