8 réponses à ce sujet

[DarthGizka]

A couple of days ago I started a character to try out ideas for a minimum-XP run; she's Pythia, a Dalish elf. I played her up to level 2 of the Tower of Ishal, and with that I have the research for the Ostagar phase pretty much sown up. It was she, by the way, who helped the defenders outside of the tower turn the tables against the darkspawn. In the end she had to kill one of the darkspawn outside herself, though, in order to reach level 4 (which is required for the 2nd stealth rank, which in turn is required for the perfect solution to the first level of the tower).

Anyway, playing her and her MaxXP cousin through the origin and the Korcari Wilds showed painfully how much the Dalish elf rogue archers got shafted by the designers (although the armour with +defense and +DEX compensates quite a bit). Before taking her further I wanted to try out the other origins, to see whether they had a lower XP toll and how much better a dual-wield rogue would fare compared to an archer.

The archer thing isn't quite as outlandish as it may seem at first, since Defensive Fire gives you +15 defence as soon as you can take Combat Training III and another +15 with Master Archer (requires Combat Training IV). By contrast, dual-wielders only get +5 defence from DW Finesse, and sword&board toons have to invest eight feats and 12 levels into the +15 from the fully upgraded Shield Defence. With +30 defence and all points piled into DEX you can tank quite a bit even at lowish levels, and a MinXP toon will get beaten on a lot in the course of duty.

Anyway, I've done the MinXP thing at Highever. I have found a perfect solution, and Leysha Cousland was able to put it into action exactly as planned. She reached Ostagar at level 2 with 1424 on the XP-o-meter and 50 silver to her name. By contrast, Pythia had to kill two wolves and two darkspawn more than the absolute minimum (because I couldn't find a good solution for the blasted cutscene during the second approach to the ruins, which deposited the whole party right on top of the wolves); she arrived at Ostagar with 2:2396 and 1 gold plus change.

A Dwarven Noble finished his exploratory run 2:1437 and 7 gold at the gates of Ostagar, but with better tactics it should be possible to lose a few more genlocks from that tally. So Parvus Aeducan is not only serious contender here, he is also very flush as becomes a Dwarven Noble. This means ample funds for trap/bomb recipes and components.

Short list (level:XP at arrival in Ostagar; Parvus doesn't seem to be online yet):
2:2396 Pythia - Dalish Elf (210 XP more than the theoretical minimum)
2:1424 Leysha - Human Noble (theoretical minimum)
2:1437 Parvus - Dwarven Noble (some 200 XP more than necessary, minimum not yet determined)

Has anyone else done this? Does anyone know the theoretical minimums for the City Elf origin and the two Dwarven ones? Any tips?

Leysha was definitely the most challenging and the most fun of the three. The execution was perfect with regard to the XP counter, but in the finale I had only 3 Cousland guards beating on the Howe Knight instead of the 5 that I had hoped for. Still, it was glorious! And she managed to save the family sword as well, so she can stick it into Howe.

[DarthGizka]

Update: tried the city elves, both the bride's story and the groom's. Both get hammered with huge chunks of XP for no reason whatsoever (1850 XP at the beginning of the arl's estate, and 1500 XP when Vaughan is dead). I don't know what happens if you don't kill Vaughan but it is unlikely to improve the bride's 3:0106 to the point where she is a contender, seeing that Vaughan and friends are only worth 149 XP together (the free kill via the fire trap was used for the 95 XP bodyguard).

Did the max runs as well, while I was at it.

3:0106 min 3:1877 max City Elf bride
3:0160 min 3:2270 max City Elf groom

The min results have room for minor improvements. The groom had to kill one guard and one dog outside the estate, which might have been avoided with a bit more finesse. Both could have left more killing blows to Soris (eight in the case of the bride) but once it was clear that the City elves were no contenders I wasn't putting in the effort.

Story-wise this is one of the strongest origins, I think. It was my first time playing the groom, so I was quite surprised that - unlike the bride - he got to save his betrothed; the fare-well scene was almost as poignant as that of the Dalish.

Gameplay-wise it was a new absolute low, even for this game. The broken camera control can't handle the outside part of the estate, inch-high curbs are insurmountable obstacles while stealthed, tons of cutscenes that unstealth your character and teleport Soris across the map, scripts send guards unerringly towards characters who are completely out of sight and way beyond sight/alert range, stuff like that. One cutscene (the 2nd one in the room with the two-hander guard captain) even triggered in the midst of battle; the bride just barely managed to get out of that scrape with 6 HP left. Beheading animations effectively immobilise the PC for at least one combat round, giving free attacks to the enemy. Ranked enemies can unstealth you through walls. The stealth/dealert logic is completely broken, especially when you are not going solo.

Stuff like that is rarely noticeable when you just hoover up enemies and loot until you come to the map exit; if you try sneaky stealthy stuff then it can cause an endless series of frustrations.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 25 janvier 2014 - 01:26 .

[DarthGizka]

Here's the dusters and the spellflingers:

2:2110 min 3:0431 max Dwarf Commoner
2:1868 min 3:2648 max Mage

A better player might be able to improve the minimum for the mage origin by at least 539 points. The reason is that I haven't found a satisfactory solution to the puzzle "How can a chantry girl kill two tough deep stalkers of the 82 XP variety and their ranked leader, without any help from the team and no room for kiting?" I buffed Lily up to the max (Buckle of the Winds, Flaming Weapons and Frost Weapons on her mace/dagger, mage robes/ring to boost WIL and healing efficiency) but she just couldn't do it on three lesser health packs and one elfroot. Hence the only way to get past the deep stalker leader was to go there with the whole team, killing off all the opposition en route.

I'm also not quite satisfied with the MinXP result for the Fade; the character page reflects only five wisps (mage) and one demon (party), but my mage also had to kill one spirit wolf and a further five spirit wolves had to be mouse-beared. The XP tally after the Harrowing was 2:0466 (min) and 2:1269 (max), in case someone wants to give it a whirl...

However, even if the mage origin had a more competitive MinXP score at the gates of Ostagar, a mage would have a hard time doing a good job inside the Tower of Ishal. Not having a stealthy rogue in the team severly restricts the tactical options there.

Hence the clear winner seems to be the Dwarven Noble rogues; XP-wise they lead the pack even if they take the 50 XP hit for the 25 gold from Lord Dace, and they have Dwarven Resistance in addition to the free Combat Training that all nobles get. Having some 30 gold at disposal is a huge boon; that kind of money can not only buy a lot of recipes and ingredients/components, it even puts a tome well within reach.

However, I am much fonder of the cute backstabber from Highever, and also the Dalish archer who has been the trailblazer so far (and who just solved the 2nd level of the Tower of Ishal by killing everything without incurring any XP whatsoever, needing only five lesser health packs). We'll see...

To round off the origin comparison: Dalish elves have an advantage of +3 DEX and an extra +3 defence from their origin kit (amour, ring), and city elves have +10 to attack (Borrowed Longsword, Fencer's Cinch). The Cousland pup gets the family arms and dwarven nobles are feelthy rich. Only the dust-towners get nothing at all.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 28 janvier 2014 - 06:44 .

[RavenousBear]

Is there any specific reason why you are interested in these MinXP runs besides your curiosity? I do not see the advantage of obtaining min xp during the origins.

[Mike3207]

My money is on the Dalish Elf-it's a very short origin.

[DarthGizka]

LoneWolf8588 wrote...

Is there any specific reason why you are interested in these MinXP runs besides your curiosity? I do not see the advantage of obtaining min xp during the origins.

Other than the fun and the challenge? Not really, no.

MinXP-ish strategies can be useful for picking up Morrigan or Leliana early, if you have special plans for them in some campaign. Apart from that there is no power advantage to MinXP-ing.

Nothing like in KotOR, where you started as a mere mortal and couldn't train Jedi abilities - i.e. take Jedi levels - until you reached a certain planet. There it was pretty much a power-gaming imperative to get through the beginning at lowish levels (the canonical 5/15 split, or sometimes even 3/17).

Originally, the MinXP question came up for me because I just wanted a character at the exit of Lothering - i.e. free to travel anywhere - at the lowest level possible, in order to determine lower bounds for the levels of enemies via the level-scrying ability of Survival III and IV.

Take the Bounty Hunters at the Frostback Mountain pass, for example. For most of my characters they were roughly the same level or lower. But when I went there with a level 7 toon they were level 9, and their leader was level 10. With a MinXP character I would be able to determine useful lower bounds for these values, since no one can go anywhere earlier (at a lesser level) than a MinXP character.

Hence a MinXP scrying toon would be at camp near Lothering most of the time, and only spring into action when some specific question needed answering. Or do the critical paths of the main quest lines for research purposes.

However, the MinXP thing is interesting in its own right because it offers a new, unique set of challenges. In that regard it is comparable to a "Done Quick" run which is not really feasible in this game, since it is too massive for wall-clock timing and it has no concept of in-game time (unlike Morrowind, for example, where the DoneQuick thing was glorious). Both MinXP and DoneQuick require identifying the critical paths, but they will usually diverge wildly in the strategies and tactics used to attain the same objectives. And both differ markedly from a normal playthrough where 99% of the time you simply walk from the entrance of a map to its exit, eliminating whatever gets in your way.

At the moment I'm really curious to see where the MinXP thing leads and how far it can be pushed.

Nightmare mode offers a similar freshness and level of challenge in most games; it was an especially rewarding experience in Oblivion, for example, because the odds were stacked 1:36 against you (i.e. you took six times as much damage as normal and you dished out only one sixth). It completely changed the way you experienced the world, but it was still doable without degenerating to a reload fest if you knew what you were doing and kept your wits about you.

In DAO, nightmare mode simply ups the frustration to insane levels. Like all aspects of the game that are not strictly related to visuals and audio, the development of ruleset and gameplay has never progressed beyond the late alpha stage, or at best very early beta. The level design is so uneven and shoddy from a gameplay perspective that it tends to get in the way even during normal playthroughs; in a nightmare run it is right in your face all time because it causes untold reloads. I like fun and challenge but I'm no glutton for punishment; hence nightmare DAO is not for me.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 29 janvier 2014 - 01:25 .

[DarthGizka]

Mike Smith wrote...

My money is on the Dalish Elf-it's a very short origin.

I'd say that the length of an origin is not a big concern, since they are all fairly short (on the order of an hour or so). But it's my fault, really. I was asking for the 'best' origin without saying in which sense, because I didn't even know what the question involved and from which angles it could be looked at.

From a pure XP tally perspective the answer is clear now, since I posted all the numbers. From the perspective of 'best basis for a MinXP run through the rest of the game', most of the info is there as well (though different people will weigh the various bits differently and thus arrive at different answers).

Things are different still if you look at them from the gameplay/fun angle.

The only constant is that the Dwarf Commoner origin is the absolute loser, whichever way you look at it. Highest MinXP, lowest MaxXP, no advantage whatsoever from a power-gaming perspective, and story-wise it is only saved by the inimitable Leske and the Rica/Orzammar tie-ins.

Its MinXP run is exactly the same as any other run, since this origin is completely on rails. Home, Tapster's, Beraht's, Provings, cell, Ostagar. There is only one direction you can walk in and the only variation is whether or not you talk to some people as you pass by (beggar, tooth fairy, merchant, Duncan). For a MinXP run you activate stealth after leaving your cell, that's about all.

The MinXP runs for the city elves and the dwarven nobles were OK but nothing to get excited about (unless you count cussing). The Dalish elf one was the first that really delivered on the MinXP promise in terms of gameplay, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some MinXP fun.

But the absolute winner is the Cousland pup.

There are eighteen mice and eight Howe thugs that have to be killed by the team before the story can go forward, and up to that point there is nothing that can be finessed beyond leaving the killing blows to Barkspawn or the teyrna. It is only after defeating the attackers in the living quarters that things get interesting. All necessary kills after that can theoretically be left to allies, and that is exactly what my Leysha managed to do. She arranged for all enemies - including the Howe Knight - to be killed by three guards whom she had rescued, except for the battle in the main hall (which was Ser Gilmore's hour) and two groups of enemies who could be safely ignored (dining hall, treasury after retrieving the family arms).

That's the kind of thing that I want from a MinXP run. The Wilds and the Tower of Ishal did not disappoint either. Quite the contrary.

In the Korcari Wilds you have to remove the four enemies who are closest to the Grey Warden outpost. Otherwise your stealthy rogue will be too jittery to search the Grey Warden cache (read: these four are so close to the outpost that your toon can't de-alert inside after sneaking past them). These are the only necessary kills, unless - as happened to one of my toons - the dice roll against you and you don't get the required three vials from them. The challenge is, of course, to get through the Wilds without incurring any XP hits beyond that strictly necessary minimum, and the main obstacle in your path is Emissary Bridge. Or Daveth's Bridge, if you will, since he usually plays the main role in conquering it.

Tower of Ishal: the fight outside has been written up elsewhere already. The first level of the tower is fairly easy if you have stealth rank 2 (which requires level 4), since in that case you can sneak past the emissary, and you only have to kill a few buggers guarding the stairs to the next level. Level 2 is neat because the two ballistae give you XP-free kills; it's fairly straightforward and a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Level 3 is tricky because the genlock alpha breaks your stealth even if you have rank 2; hence it comes down to a re-run of Castle Cousland starring the three mabari hounds. The ogre is what he always is, naturally, nothing here except for leaving the killing blow to someone else.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 29 janvier 2014 - 04:39 .

[RavenousBear]

DarthGizka wrote...

LoneWolf8588 wrote...

Is there any specific reason why you are interested in these MinXP runs besides your curiosity? I do not see the advantage of obtaining min xp during the origins.

Other than the fun and the challenge? Not really, no.

MinXP-ish strategies can be useful for picking up Morrigan or Leliana early, if you have special plans for them in some campaign. Apart from that there is no power advantage to MinXP-ing.

Nothing like in KotOR, where you started as a mere mortal and couldn't train Jedi abilities - i.e. take Jedi levels - until you reached a certain planet. There it was pretty much a power-gaming imperative to get through the beginning at lowish levels (the canonical 5/15 split, or sometimes even 3/17).

Originally, the MinXP question came up for me because I just wanted a character at the exit of Lothering - i.e. free to travel anywhere - at the lowest level possible, in order to determine lower bounds for the levels of enemies via the level-scrying ability of Survival III and IV.

Take the Bounty Hunters at the Frostback Mountain pass, for example. For most of my characters they were roughly the same level or lower. But when I went there with a level 7 toon they were level 9, and their leader was level 10. With a MinXP character I would be able to determine useful lower bounds for these values, since no one can go anywhere earlier (at a lesser level) than a MinXP character.

Hence a MinXP scrying toon would be at camp near Lothering most of the time, and only spring into action when some specific question needed answering. Or do the critical paths of the main quest lines for research purposes.

However, the MinXP thing is interesting in its own right because it offers a new, unique set of challenges. In that regard it is comparable to a "Done Quick" run which is not really feasible in this game, since it is too massive for wall-clock timing and it has no concept of in-game time (unlike Morrowind, for example, where the DoneQuick thing was glorious). Both MinXP and DoneQuick require identifying the critical paths, but they will usually diverge wildly in the strategies and tactics used to attain the same objectives. And both differ markedly from a normal playthrough where 99% of the time you simply walk from the entrance of a map to its exit, eliminating whatever gets in your way.

At the moment I'm really curious to see where the MinXP thing leads and how far it can be pushed.

Nightmare mode offers a similar freshness and level of challenge in most games; it was an especially rewarding experience in Oblivion, for example, because the odds were stacked 1:36 against you (i.e. you took six times as much damage as normal and you dished out only one sixth). It completely changed the way you experienced the world, but it was still doable without degenerating to a reload fest if you knew what you were doing and kept your wits about you.

In DAO, nightmare mode simply ups the frustration to insane levels. Like all aspects of the game that are not strictly related to visuals and audio, the development of ruleset and gameplay has never progressed beyond the late alpha stage, or at best very early beta. The level design is so uneven and shoddy from a gameplay perspective that it tends to get in the way even during normal playthroughs; in a nightmare run it is right in your face all time because it causes untold reloads. I like fun and challenge but I'm no glutton for punishment; hence nightmare DAO is not for me.

I see. Nothing wrong with making the game more challenging. Does your party just stand back while allied npcs take all the kills? You should definitely do Orzammar as the first treaty quest as the enemies do not scale with your character for the lower levels.

I also take it you do not play on the PC since respec mods can allow you to choose any skills/talents/spells for your companions.

It is not surprising the Human Noble is the winner since the guards can steal the xp from your party. But I do not know how you could resist not killing the Howe Knight. The lieutenants in the early origins can drop good loot, and I believe that knight may drop an executioner's helm. Not bad having an extra 25 stamina early in the game.

[DarthGizka]

Here are the minimum and maximum XP values at arrival in Ostagar, sorted by MinXP score.

[b]2:1437[/b] / 3:1759  Dwarf Noble (min can be improved by several hundred XP)
[b]2:1424[/b] / 3:1915  Human Noble (max has only 67 of the 72 party kills)
2:1868 / [b]3:2648[/b]  Mage
2:2110 / 3:0431  Dwarf Commoner
2:2396 / 3:1906  Dalish Elf (min is 210 XP more than the theoretical limit)
3:0106 / 3:1877  City Elf bride
3:0160 / 3:2270  City Elf groom

The Dwarf Noble is listed first even though my MinXP score is marginally higher than that of the Human Noble. The reason is that the result can be improved quite a bit by using a ballista to kill the mercenaries during the cutscene ambush in the Aeducan Thaig. IIRC that's a couple of 82 XP dudes and a 164 XP leader in addition to the odd 27 XP mook.

Most results are from normal or exploratory playthroughs (on PC without DLC), only the Cousland and Dalish MinXP results were researched thoroughly. As always, better players may be able to get better results...



And while I'm at it anyway:

LoneWolf8588 wrote...

Nothing wrong with making the game more challenging.

MinXP, MaxXP and DoneQuick offer different, unusual kinds of challenges, and they are much more fun than standard fare like nightmare vanilla solo. And less frustrating.

Does your party just stand back while allied npcs take all the kills?

Of course not. As a minimum, the party needs to be in "Hold" mode, and their tactics need to be cleared or changed to the standard AI suppression setup. I.e. behaviour "Default" with empty custom preset or behaviour "Cautious" with custom rule "Self:Any -> Wait", respectively. Ranged types need to be switched to melee in order to keep them from randomly attacking anything in sight.

If the Warden needs help in preprocessing enemies for the allies then it is best to use a single archer with Rapid Shot enabled to suppress criticals, or a staff wielder. This reduces the chance of an overdose. But on the whole it is much easier to keep a lid on things if the Warden is the only party member in the hot zone.

You should definitely do Orzammar as the first treaty quest as the enemies do not scale with your character for the lower levels.

Yes, I heard that early Orzammar is supposed to be a MaxXP bonanza, and I'm definitely going to do it sooner or later. However, that will require some special planning since development of non-mage characters is artificially delayed by stupid level requirements (excepting Barkspawn and Shale).

Morrigan is the only available mage companion and she will have levelled at most once, meaning she can have only one of Cone of Cold, Force Field, Walking Bomb or Sleep unless you can afford to give her a tome. Wynne is not available at all. This makes a level 7 party significantly weaker than even a party at level 8 or 9, unless the Warden is a mage with a carefully assembled spellbook.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 22 février 2014 - 12:02 .