96 réponses à ce sujet

[hardvice]

Above all else, spend some time figuring out the Tactics system. Unless you really want to micromanage everybody and spend half the game paused, setting up sound tactics (paying special attention to healing and taking out or disabling key targets like mages) is really the difference between dying all the time and dying only at a few key fights. Once you're no longer dying during the routine fights, figuring out the big fights becomes not only less frustrating, but actually fun.



Also, make sure your mages and archers are set for Ranged behaviour so they'll actually try to keep their distance.



Make a ton of health poultices. Morrigan has herbalism from the start, Bodahn in your camp sells unlimited flasks, and Varathorn in the Dalish camp sells unlimited elfroot. If I die, nine times out of ten it's because I'm out of poultices and my healer's out of mana.



Prioritize your targets. If your allies are grinding away at the bulk of the enemies, take your time to walk around and pick out mages, archers, and other annoyances. If there are a bunch of traps, take control of a rogue and disarm them quickly -- it might seem like a pain during a fight, but it's better than watching Morrigan get her face chewed off while she's stuck in a bear trap. Keep an eye for enemies swarming and use skills like dual weapon sweep and mind blast (you can set these up in Tactics, too). Look out for enemy healers ... Curse of Mortality is great for that if you have it.



Save often. Take a few seconds after fights to let yourself heal, regenerate mana and stamina, and reset your skill timers.



It's worth paying attention to hostility. Warrior skills like threaten and taunt really are worth it.



Two or more mages can definitely help, but really just about any party is viable if you're careful. I've run three rogues and a dog and it wasn't that much more difficult. Know everybody's role, and make sure their tactics keep them at it.

[chaosapiant]

I play on easy myself, because I don't like to powergame. I don't want to be handicapped for not spec my characters out with 100% efficiency. And the combat is always so close together that AOE spells become too difficult for me to manage with the friendly fire on. I'm on my 3rd run through now, and each time I start with the diff on normal, then kick it down to easy several hours in out of frustration.

[Monstrion]

All you need is a mage. One does the trick. Pump all you can to magic and willpower, dont mind the other stats. Get yourself heal line in restoration and optionally the blessings line. Then find spirit healer specialization and go this up to third spell at least. Get some CC, I recommend glyphs and curses.



Dont play with two tanks. Play with one, the more characters getting hit, the more you have to heal. Dont invest into constitution or willpower, its pointless. Pump points into str to get at least 45 (massive armor) and the rest to dexterity for a better dodge chance.



Done, you won the game.

[joemighty16]

I can only concur. The first time, full of vigour and enthusiasm, I played on Normal difficulty. Almost to the end of Lothering I deleted my char, recreated it and played it on Easy. I had just died too often ("wiped" might be a better description). Finished it twice so far on Easy and had several temporary chars (primarily exploring the other Origins stories), also on Easy. However I'm finally about to finish it now on Normal without my main char falling battle (lots of Saves and Replays to get it right).

So far I've usually used two warrior tanks, a DPS rogue, and an AoE mage. That works for me. More tanks to soak up damage without any real need to heal as often and a combo of damage dealers. And of course, when swamped or stuck with an elite, my play-and-pause rate is practically one hit per pause!

In Normal you definately use a lot more health poultices. Have a Herbalist create poultices and potions since traders' stock tend to be finite. You also need to kite enemies away from big groups whenever possible. Lead them into traps. Conversely, have at least one specced out Trap-detector. Use combo's! It is heart warming to shatter a frozen enemy! (there are several more here). Decide when to have an open, free for all brawl, or when to focus fire and swamp enemies one by one. Remove mages first from the fight, either by archery or magery. CC spells that incapacitate enemies can give you a second or two breather to pop that health poultice, finish an attacker off or pull out a member. Save often. Save before major confrontations, before ambushes. Experiment.

This definately isn't a game to play charging in with guns blazing. Take your time. Rethink your strategy, focus on your party members' customized stats. And don't be intimidated by the 1337 gamers - just enjoy the game. The moment it seems like too hard work then you must consider whether its still fun. But it does get easier the further you progress as you start to gather better equipment and your party members get to be more specialised in their functions. Don't skip out on side quests, trap disarments and picking locks (anything that gives XP) - the higher level your members are, the more points you can distribute. See how far you can get past lvl 20.

Modifié par joemighty16, 07 janvier 2010 - 12:41 .

[Darkovan]

The order that you do the campaign events can change the difficulty quite a bit as well. If you haven't been to the circle tower yet, head there. I don't want to drop spoilers, but, the earlier you head there the better.

I noticed you mentioned that you had more then 1 character with sword and shield, this is possibly just my personal exp of the game, or it might be the same for others im not sure, but I've found the that playing with a sword and shield character in the group more difficult then playing without one. Wearing a shield allows your character to dodge more attacks, particularly ranged attacks, however, you sacrifice a large amount of damage to do so. Sword and shield spec'd character have a few single target incapacitates, but these do low damage and effect only 1 target. by playing with 2 characters equipped this way i can imagine fights taking a very long time and the total damage damage your taking in an encounter would be higher because of the time it takes to take foes down.

That being said, some fights are a lot easier with sword and shield character such as reverants, dragons ect.



I played through on hard on my first play through, and nightmare every play through there after, my first and second play through i had Alister sword and shield tank and to be honest my latest few play throughs I've had him in camp the whole game and found it noticeably easier.

[Grarghsies]

All you need is one tank, with Warrior lines to Taunt and Threaten and ALL the second tier Shield abilities (Shield Defense > Shield Expertise) for immunity to knockdown and the first 3 abilities in the third tier (Shield Block > Shield Tactics) for immunity to flanking damage. After that you can pretty much build the character as you want.



That allows you to have 1 tank in the middle of the enemies taunting and keeping hostility on him. You need to use Taunt whenever it's off cooldown. If you use your Rogues to take out enemy casters then for the majority of battles there's no reason why you can't leave Morrigan or another mage right beside the main melee. That way, if your tank loses aggro, then your mage can pop a Mind Blast and give the tank time to retaunt or hit him with his Threatened melee attacks.



You WILL need a strategy for taking down enemy casters. The character in my profile picture could probably have solo'ed the last boss on Normal, but casters are difficult. If you see one of your characters surrounded by a red glyph, that means they've been hit with Curse of Mortality, which prevents healing. One of your characters needs to instantly use an ability like Cleanse Area or Dispel Magic or that character WILL die.



A good character for taking down enemy casters is an archer. Archers have the Arrow of Slaying ability which is near enough to an insta-kill for most enemies. If you have two archers, then you can pretty much snipe enemy casters right off the bat.



But basically, once you have a decently built tank then the game pretty much allows you to use any party composition you want.



You WILL have to learn to pause the game though, the difficulty levels are built with pausing in mind.

[FabMan_UK]

Here are some tips:



- Set the game to Normal Mode

- Always try to take a full party of 4 which include:

* A Tank (Alistair or Shale) - This person will get hit the most, does not hurt others that well.

* A Damager (Sten, Oghren, Dog) - This person will do the most damage

* A Healer (Wynne) - Most important character, will keep everyone alive.

* Your choice - Perhaps another damager or someone with a bow who can stun.

- Set the characters to Auto Level

- In Combat Tactics set:

* The Tank to Defender and the AI to Aggressive

* The Damager to Scrapper and the AI to Aggressive

* The Healer to Healer and the AI to Ranged / Passive

* Other character should suit the needs

- If AI set correctly, most of the time you'll only need to control your own character. Bosses will be the exception, then it's mainly selecting them to drink a potion or to revive a downed party member.

- For equipment always check to replace the old with new:

* The Tank has the strongest armour available with a shield, forget about fatigue. Unless Shale then the best crystal available for armour and then an offensive crystal to match.

* The Damager has the best Two Handed Weapon, forget about a shield. Equipment should have benefits to increase damage / attack over defence.

* Healer should have equipment to increase Wisdom and Magic, all else is secondary.

* Always keep plenty of potions of health and magic, use them in bigger battles.

- If you have an injury, get rid of it straight away. Use an injury kit or go back to camp.

- If being attacked by a melee Boss who runs after your character, try running away. Your party will chop it up while you are keeping enough distance not to get hurt.

- When entering battle you can select your whole party (Drag and drop or button under portraits), then target one opponent at a time. You'll whittle down their numbers quicker if you all target one at a time. Been warned you'll stop them from using their abilities if you keep them all selected, best to click on an enemy then the portrait of your main character.

- Your main character could be a Dehabilitator, this is someone who stuns opponents or makes them weaker while your party finishes them off. Mages are very capable (look at Morrigan) and so are Rogues.

[Metswiki772]

I think that one of the best aspects of DA:O - and this thread makes this point splendidly - is that there's no one set strategy you have to employ to win. My first play thru I employed a shock-n-awe mage strategy with Morrigan, Wynne and my mage all on the field most of the time. I've run thru as a warrior with Sten AND Alistair in my party, but mostly I've found I like playing with three rogues and Morrigan. I don't really employ a tank so much. I like to stealth in and set traps, throw grenades,use dirty fighting, back stab, etc. and for me, nothing is more frustrating than a chest I can't open and nothing is more satisfying than a bunch of darkspawn falling on their butts because of a well placed grease trap and lobbing a flame bomb into the melee pit, so I like having the rogue early. But that's me and my origin story.



My advice would be to play a bit as each character when you pick them up. Learn their strengths/weaknesses/skills. Take care when your party members level up to build them carefully both in terms of their own skills/strengths, but also with an eye to their role on the team. e.g., if you're a rogue and took deft hands/tools early, don't build Leliana or Zev's lockpicking skills, pump up their stealing or traps or poisons, etc.; if you're a mage don't give Morrigan and Wynne the same destruction spells your character has. Make your characters complimentary. There's no one set strategy to win, all of the strategies described here are workable. Find one or two or three that YOU enjoy playing and build your team so they rock at them. IMO, that's the best part of the DA:O game as a whole. You're not locked into one set of things that work. There's a multitude of ways to fillet a darkspawn.

[Jonnerz]

I can just about manage on hard. Which is more than can be said for Fallout 3. That game got sadistic.

Modifié par Jonnerz, 07 janvier 2010 - 02:03 .

[goat_fab]

 Lmao Coquition. I completely agree. I expected yet another yawn-fest when it came to combat but oh my god..I was so wrong. It took me 7 tries to beat the bounty hunters that you encounter outside a certain city. I finally realized that you can't just run in and attack. I had to constantly pause, switch to this party member, queue this ability, switch to this person and use a bomb, queue this spell, etc. It actually requires planning...on Easy mode. I feel like a noob D:

[keesio74]

Lord Phoebus wrote...

Feraele wrote...


Have to agree..pausing every two seconds is not my idea of winning...but then I come from MMOs..played them for many years...NO pause button lol.   

For me watching others do this on you-tube..what possible satisfaction or challenge is there in pause, pause, pause pause..and then pause again?

.

In an MMO you're only controlling your character not a party.  I'll admit I tried to go though the original Guildwars campaign with a pure AI party.  Got every mission except for the Ascension mission and the hold the final Dwarven mission where you have to hold the fort.  Of course the AI was much better for the Guildwars companions than it is for your comrades in DA:O.  

That said I do believe this should have been a turn-based game since they gave you a party.  When you need to control mutiple characters that each have more than 10 abilities, turn-based really works the best and they could have made the encounters tougher.  I often felt I was fighting the controls more than the enemies. 

Mostly agree. Being an old school gamer, I'm used to turn-based CRPGs. It makes perfect sense to me if you can control your party. If you only control yourself and your party members would do their own thing, then turn based is not has vital. Of course you can also play that way with tactics driving the party members. I prefer to control everyone and I rather micromanage myself.

[Timurlane]

Yeah, I actually had to restart my first playthrough as a mage on nightmare because I had built her so poorly. I have never played on difficulties other than Nightmare but I can assure you that the learning curve for Dragon Age is steep and that once you climb it, you will likely be finding the game to be too easy to play on nightmare rather than too difficult on easy.



Stick with it and good luck! It's worth working through the learning curve.

[Pinkleaf]

What can be infuriating when playing on normal difficulty is that on occasion the game will switch itself into nightmare mode and then later switch to easy, there seems to be no continues difficulty level.

[Coquiton]

Wow, thanks for all the tips! There are a few tips here and there that I hadn't thought of (like using only one tank, for example) so I'll be sure to try those out.



And yeah, seeing the wide range of strategies is pretty good, I was starting to feel that the game had "the one" party you needed to use if you wanted everything to go smoothly.



And, I will definitely try the respec mod, I've been giving my tanks con instead of dex. My line of thought was "more health is always better for tanks". That, along with my 'instinct' that ties dex to rogues, led to con-heavy tanks!



So, thanks for the replies! I'll set it back on normal and try out all these strategies!

[TanithAeyrs]

There has been a lot of good advice given here so I won't add a lot. My first playthrough I played a dual wield (sword and dagger) DPS rogue- Dalish elf- on normal and found it very difficult (the Mabari wiped me multiple times too), second playthrough I played an elven mage and found it almost too easy on normal. I am now on my 3rd playthrough on hard with a human DPS dual wield warrior (sword and dagger again) and I have only had trouble with a few boss fights. I am a roleplayer, not a min/maxer so my builds have only changed based on what I think my character would know or work to improve. It is useful to build dexterity for all of your characters, that is the one stat that I do work on early- 1 or 2 points every level up (I always build cunning first though- can't miss the cool dialog options). Mages get the least benefit from dexterity so I would build magic first for them.



Use whatever "stun" skills you have as often as you can- shield bash, riposte, dirty fighting, mind blast, cone of cold, pommel strike, ect. A stunned enemy does not hit back. Slow your enemy down with grease, glyphs, ect. Always take out mages early on (sneaky rogue, archer, another mage or dog are most useful). I do not use health poultices unless I have to. While you are drinking a poultice the enemy can hit you potentialy doing as much damage as the poultice cures. I usually use the higher level health poultices at 25% health or less- that is one thing I micromanage, I save my tactics slots for stun and damage attacks. If you have a mage with the heal spell you can set them to use it for a party member at 50% health (just make sure that your mage isn't healing while he/she is being attacked). Lesser health poultices work best for mages and are okay for rogues at lower levels but don't do much for warriors above about 7th level.



And rule # 1, damage 1st. Dead enemies do not hit back. Using a killing stroke on an enemy with low health is much more advantageous than drinking a poultice unless you are about to die. This one rule, combined with sound strategy will make the game much easier.

[novaseeker]

Lots of good advice here.



Since it's a multi-character game, you either have to pause liberally to micromanage or be very pro-active in setting up your tactics carefully for each character based on their skills, strengths and weaknesses. The game can be played effectively in either way. I have found, though, that "winging it" without paying attention to tactics and at the same time refusing to pause leads to problems -- probably because it isn't really designed to played that way.



Poultices are your friend. Morrigan already has strong herbalism skills, so always come with a ton of poultices available, particularly health poultices. On heavy fights, they will be chugged -- again, they are in the game for a reason.

[Keymonk]

I consider myself not good at the game. Yet I managed to complete it in Normal. That's odd! Hell, I started in Normal. o.o'

Modifié par Keymonk, 07 janvier 2010 - 07:47 .

[AdorableAnarchist]

I play Easy because, well, I suck at all things combat. I let the game populate my tactics (except for making sure Wynne had mana potions set up and healing potions) and pretty much go in with the expectation that, at some point, *I* will cause my character to die because I am not coordinated to swap between characters easily. The thing that helped me TONS was a very simple rule:



When confronted by a group, prioritize the deaths. Mages first, then archers, then big guys. I leave my tanks and such to keep the big guys off my rogue as she picks off the ranged folks. But, I always, always, always go for the mage types first.

[Godak]

1. From Lothering, go to the Circle of Magi

2. Recruit Wynne

3. ???

4. Profit



Glad I could help.



Also, mages are very, VERY strong. Kill them first, or prepare to get several different colors of sh!t nuked out of your crying anus.

[Frozeal]

Godak wrote...

1. From Lothering, go to the Circle of Magi
2. Recruit Wynne
3. ???
4. Profit

Glad I could help.

Also, mages are very, VERY strong. Kill them first, or prepare to get several different colors of sh!t nuked out of your crying anus.

Leliana -> Tactics -> Enemy is Mage -> Arrow of Slaying/Shattering Arrow

etc etc

[enderandrew]

Pause, heal, lather, rinse, repeat.

[Brer Lapin]

Coquiton wrote...
Oh, hah, this is all happening on normal. It wasn't until I got my first wolf encounter on the world map (after finishing redcliffe)  that I decided to play it on easy.

In the xbox forums I've seen a good few threads about the difficulty shift in the early teen levels - and if you've just finished Redcliffe you probably just recently got into the teens, yes?  Lots of people have the same experience: doing okay, get to level 12 or so and suddenly it's crazy hard.  It seems like the enemies get nastier abilities and better AI around that level.  General concensus is tough it out, gain a few more levels and you'll be back on par with the enemies.

[AtreiyaN7]

Some people do not get it at all. I believe Statue had a great post in another thread suggesting that this is the equivalent of someone who plays darts trying to tell a chess player what they should be doing and just not understanding the attraction of chess itself. See, there are those of us who enjoy strategy, thinking, planning, and tactics - with emphasis on thinking and planning and maximum control over our party, Now, you can randomly push all the buttons you like and say that it's better gameplay just because it happens in real time, but it's not. It's just different, and the fact that you fail to recognize that playing an MMO/FPS or whatever else and playing in a more strategic and tactical manner are two different things is willful ignorance.

I play MMOs too, but this game is not supposed to be WoW. Next time your 25-man raid group wipes on Festergut or Rotface for two hours or so and you burn through gold on repairs, I'm sure you might wish you had the ability to pause and do a little more planning and thinking or micromanage the 24 other human beings in your raid group. I wonder if all the MMO people who feel compelled to mention that they have MMO backgrounds while bashing pausing in DA:O happen to play their MMOs sans addons. They make it sound like pausing is a defect/cheat/interminably boring, yet addons could be considered "cheating" or "making the game easier" or "making it really boring" - blah blah. It seems highly hypocritical to bash on a standard feature of games such as DA:O when they themselves (whether they acknowledge it or not) are using tools (addons) to make their lives easier in an MMO. I'm a 25-man raider in my WoW guild, and I don't know anyone who doesn't use, say, DBM or Bigwigs during 25-man raids and their preferred UI (like the tanks/healers) IF they're a serious raider (casual players...eh). It's pretty much mandatory, so don't act like real-time combat in MMOs doesn't involve having a little "help" on the side.

Edit: Just like addons are tools at the MMO player's disposal, pausing is a tool at the RPG player's disposal.

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 07 janvier 2010 - 10:03 .

[Uzaik]

Glyphs, Blood Wound, War Cry, Cone of Cold... Crowd Control is amazing in this game and as soon as you have half of the enemies frozen, your Rogue can single handedly kill them while your tank holds the rest. Like the rest have said and, as you may notice, there are many ways to build a successful party.

[hereticeyes]

I am glad that when played on Hard difficulty, the game REALLY is hard. This way EVERYONE gets their fun. Those that like hard get that, those that want it easy can play on easy.