41 réponses à ce sujet

[badkenbad]

Hi all! I'm starting a new stream shortly at http://twitch.tv/badkenbad

 

I'm starting my third character now, and I thought I'd try something a little different. At first I thought I might try a speed run, but I had a look at the speed runs that are online, and most of them rely on duping and stuff that just isn't possible in the game any more.

 

I still kind of want to see how long it takes to do a minimalist character, sticking as much as possible to the main quest lines and sticking with the original 3 companion characters. No romancing, no unnecessary side quests, basically just powering through the story.

 

It's going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I'm normally very much a completionist, and I love gathering materials and crafting stuff.

 

I'd love to know what you all think about the idea! I'm just using the built-in Origin streaming, so I won't have a webcam or anything, but I will be watching chat on my phone's Twitch app.

[PapaCharlie9]

It's a fine idea.

 

It would still count as a speedrun. It's a special class -- no or very limited exploits.

 

Sure, you won't beat 3 hours, but you could still do something pretty decent without duping or clipping glitches. Duping is only needed for two things: 1) gaining power to open required zones, and 2) having decent gear to mow through enemies as quickly as possible. You wouldn't have to spend more than an extra hour or two farming or side-questing for equivalent gear. Power would still be a problem, but with careful planning you can squeeze a lot of power out of some very quick quests in the Hinterlands. There's a loop in the speedrun videos that, with a few additional sidequests that are on the way anyway, you could easily earn 1 point of Power per minute.

 

Will you do any crafting? I'm planning a run where I do no crafting, other than potions. Just looted gear. On Nightmare.

[badkenbad]

I don't think I can stop myself from doing crafting altogether. It's a sickness...

 

No crafting would definitely be tough. I'm playing an archer, so I think I'll make myself a Tier 2 bow when I can afford the materials. I did a trial run, and it was very hard to make it through the early bosses in the game without a crafted bow.

 

I'm just past the 2 hour mark right now and taking a break. Heading for Redcliffe with 8/15 power needed for the next quest. That'll be easy to pick up with camps and rifts on the way to Redcliffe.

 

I somehow spent nearly a half hour just creating my character.  I can't bring myself to use the default ones.

[badkenbad]

Good morning everyone!

 

I'm hopping back in to my minimalist character stream at http://twitch.tv/badkenbad

 

The save game says 3 hours 16 minutes, and I'm about to start the In Hushed Whispers quest. My character is only level 5 and I'm still using the Flames of the Inquisition preorder gear. I haven't crafted anything better, and RNG has been pretty cruel to me on drops so far.

 

Feel free to drop by the stream and say hi, tell me how bad I'm playing, or how I totally chose the wrong horns for my Inquisitor!

 

[badkenbad]

Well, we made it to Skyhold. The Haven fight was brutal at level 6. I had to reload a few times, and cheese the fight with the big boss a little by running back to the chantry to split up the forces.

 

My Skyhold save is at 6:38. I don't know how those speedrunners do it - Nightmare in 3 hours! Well, yeah, actually I do know how they do it because I've watched the videos, but still...

 

Taking a break for a while. I'll post when I get back.

[PapaCharlie9]

 

Well, we made it to Skyhold. The Haven fight was brutal at level 6. I had to reload a few times, and cheese the fight with the big boss a little by running back to the chantry to split up the forces.

 

That's not cheesing, that is correct tactics.

[Toasted Llama]

Reminds me of  NSG (No Sphere Grid) runs of Final Fantasy 10.

The hardcore minimalistic run would be a solo Inqy tho, maybe the knight enchanter can handle that?

[badkenbad]

Hello again!

 

I'm starting up the stream again shortly. Things will start to get interesting again soon, as we just arrived at Skyhold, and I want to go for my Tempest specialization ASAP. That involves killing a bunch of level 12 demons in the Storm Coast, and since I'm only level 7, it will be... interesting. I may end up doing a little farming to craft some better gear for my party. That kind of goes against the "minimalist" approach, but so does dying constantly (like I did in Haven - ugh!).

 

After that, I think I'll be skipping everything in Crestwood and the Western Approach just to get the main story bits done. Then I'll need to figure out how to get all the power points I'll need for Adamant and Halamshiral.

 

Be sure to say hello in chat if you drop by, and remember that I am completely open to suggestions and ridicule of my mediocre gameplay.

[badkenbad]

The hardcore minimalistic run would be a solo Inqy tho, maybe the knight enchanter can handle that?

 

I think a solo KE would have a very, VERY difficult time with nightmare difficulty before getting the specialization. I'm not going to say impossible, because I would have thought any solo nightmare run impossible, but rogues have done it.

[badkenbad]

Well, this "minimalist" run is turning out not so minimalist.

 

I'm up to 9:34 played with my now level 8 Qunari archer.

 

I ended up spending a couple hours farming materials for Tier 2 gear which should last me through the end of the game. I also had to spend a lot of time farming Elfroot, because I've been using so many health/regen potions, and I need to upgrade my potions. It took me a while to get the spirit essences for my Tempest spec, and the next step is the containment devices. After that I'll continue the main quest.

 

I honestly expected to be much further along after this much time played. Not duping materials slows things down considerably. Also, combat with enemies 4 levels higher is very time consuming, and I expect that will be true even after I have better weapons and armor for my party.

 

Still, it's been an interesting experiment, and I'm looking forward to seeing how long the rest of the main quest takes - especially since I have a lot of power points to generate between now and the end, and I can't do them quickly with requisitions from duped materials.

[badkenbad]

So... the game clock is now at 12:44, my party is level 10 with decent gear all around (except for Dorian's armor), and my party is ready to hit Adamant fortress.

I think I might shift gears at this point and just start collecting power points. Closing rifts will level me up a bit, which will make the fighting later on easier. I need 70 more power points to finish the main quest (30 for Halamshiral and 40 for the Arbor Wilds).

I have to collect all those power points eventually, so I might as well do it now when leveling up will benefit me the most.

[badkenbad]

I've been getting a bit frustrated by the lack of progress and the amount of time I've had to spend gathering elfroot and other stuff for crafting. So...

 

Today, I did the math. Altogether, the Inquisitor's Path quest line requires 125 Inquisition Power. All of the power reward quests, recruits, and fade rifts on the path of the main quest yield a total of 113 power points. Probably the easiest way to fill in the missing 12 points is by doing requisitions along the way. Alternately, you could unlock the Exalted Plains and do the rifts and the first few battlefield quests there - but that's probably more time consuming than just doing 12 requisitions.

 

Here's the numbers I used to figure all this out, with the help of the Prima guide and the DA wiki:

 

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

 

My minimalist character has been pretty severely under-leveled for most of the game, and gear has been an issue. That has made combat take a long time, in addition to using up a lot of potions, which forced me to spend a lot of time gathering elfroot. Crafting gear required me to spend a lot of time gathering crafting materials.

 

The thing is, there's really no reason to be under-leveled for the early parts of the game. Since all those quests and rifts have to be completed anyway, it makes more sense to do as many as possible before spending the power to progress the main quest. It also affords more opportunities to get better drops along the way so perhaps less crafting would be required.

 

So... TL;DR I'm starting over. I'll front-load the power gathering on this character so she will level up naturally and hopefully get some decent gear drops. I won't be wasting time on any non-power-reward quests, however I am probably going to grab all the Tyrdda Bright Axe landmarks, because I want that sweet staff for Dorian. I think I'm going to stick with a Tempest archer just for fun, even though a mage would probably do more damage.

 

I'm going to keep on streaming, because it keeps me honest, and the few people who do pop in to say hi make it worthwhile. http://twitch.tv/badkenbad

[PapaCharlie9]

 

So... TL;DR I'm starting over. 

 

Totally standard. Practice and planning is all par for the course. It takes lots of practice runs, although usually partial runs for particular areas, to figure out an optimal path or enemies to avoid.

 

BTW, you can buy elfroot at the Crossroads merchant in the Hinterlands and save yourself a ton of time. Unless you are short on gold too?

 

In this next run, make sure you loot-1 all the chests and sacks in Haven. Every time you return to Haven, loot-1 all the chests and sacks again. The chest nearest to Cassandra's practice dummies is high level, it will drop rare items that are worth a lot of gold, relatively speaking. Most will be too high level for you to use before Skyhold, so just sell them and have plenty of gold to buy what you need. Saves tons of time. So much so that I don't mind spending 5 minutes save scumming it, on the chance that it will drop something really good.

 

You know what I mean by loot-1, right?

[badkenbad]

You know what I mean by loot-1, right?

 

Yeah, but I'm leery of using an exploit that might be patched out - though I don't expect we'll see many more single player patches. I'd rather come up with a baseline that doesn't use exploits, then refine it with reliable cross-platform exploits. I realize the typical speed running mantra is that anything is fair game if the game lets you do it, but this isn't that. Plus I already looted everything from Haven on this new character before I headed to the Hinterlands. Oops.

 

When I got super frustrated about gear with the previous character I used the refilling chest exploit to get a bunch of T2 materials from the dock near the Ferelden Frostback. Stealthing in there is really too slow, though. Getting gold makes more sense, since T2 stuff is available pretty early from the Black Emporium now. No fade-touched obsidian, though - but that could be pulled from Redcliffe.

 

We'll see how long my dedication to no exploits lasts when bears and assassins start ganging up on me in Hafter's Woods.

[Dai Grepher]

Can't you just stealth your way through most levels? That's what my solo nightmare rogue did most of the time. And with no companions, the enemies never sense him.

 

Also, is Hushed Whispers really the best path to take? You are given mandatory companions in that case, and they can slow you down.

[badkenbad]

I'm sure a rogue can save time by solo stealthing through some areas, but i don't think that the time saved by doing that is significant compared to all the other stuff. I have to close like 24 rifts. I have to run around doing dozens of quests for power points. I have to take a couple of keeps. I think that being powerful enough to end combat quickly and being efficient with travel will end up being more important.

 

I honestly haven't time tested In Hushed Whispers vs. Champions of the Just. I am more familiar with Redcliffe and I really hate the Envy fight compared to the Alexius fight. Again, though, that's just one small part of the whole. Maybe I'll compare the two after I've completed a minimalist game.

 

My goal isn't really to be the fastest, it's to get an idea how long it takes to finish just the main quest as designed, by gathering power points without exploits and playing through the main quests. I'm not even skipping dialogue and cutscenes, I'm just not choosing any unnecessary dialogue.

 

To be honest, I don't even know if skipping combat meets the spirit of what I'm trying to do. The designers didn't put all those enemies there for decoration.  I could probably be convinced, though. I'm happy to read anyone's thoughts on what I'm doing, and I do appreciate your roguey perspective. You are WAY better at the game than I am if you finished a solo nightmare rogue game - I don't think I could accomplish that.

[Dai Grepher]

Actually I had to take a break from it after getting to Skyhold. I sequence broke the game and it shut my computer down on three separate occasions even since returning to Haven to get a cutscene that wouldn't load. So I will probably have to go back to the part after I killed the Ferelden Frostback but before I used the map hole to get to the Gull and the Lantern before getting Giselle and going to Val Royeaux.

 

I also used a few other exploits, like the stealth inventory during battle exploit, and of course the on/off belt of health exploit to replenish health. Also the double long shot exploit. More map breaking to get out of range of enemies and arrow them to death. Danny the Druffalo exploit. And of course the Skirmisher infinite stealth exploit. Obligatory loot exploit at the docks near the Dragon Nest to get a bunch of fade-touched obsidian and veridium. Item dupe exploit. And probably some more I'm forgetting.

[PapaCharlie9]

Yeah, but I'm leery of using an exploit that might be patched out - though I don't expect we'll see many more single player patches

Right, I forgot you were going for a no exploit run. That's gonna be tough. You will be at the mercy of the RNG. Loot-1, while an exploit, is really about reducing RNG variance rather than an "unfair advantage". At least, that's my rationalization.

[Dai Grepher]

It also prevents clutter in your inventory.

[badkenbad]

Well I had a bit of good news today. On the spreadsheet, I had forgotten to add in the power points you get for doing the main quests - and there are a lot of them. I won't have to do nearly as much running around in the Western Approach, which is good. Also, looking at those numbers I learned that Champions of the Just has a total of 6 possible points, while In Hushed Whispers only has 3. That's only a couple of rifts worth of time, but I may do Champions of the Just this time around rather than In Hushed Whispers. Even though I hate the Envy fight, it shouldn't be a problem, because I will be over-leveled for that and Haven.

 

I'm gathering all the power points possible from the Hinterlands and the Storm Coast first, then continuing the main quest. I'm only doing the Storm Coast because it's the easiest place to get containment devices for the Tempest spec quest (I already have the Spirit Essences from rifts in the Hinterlands). If I replay this with a Knight Enchanter, I'll probably do the Fallow Mire instead for Wisp Essences, and just not recruit Bull. A Necromancer should be able to get plenty of skulls in the Hinterlands. A Rift Mage would have to get to Skyhold at a slightly lower level, without opening up either the Fallow Mire or Storm Coast, and going to the Exalted Plains instead, for Venatori tomes.

 

By the way, I decided to go ahead and leave selected Haven chests and sacks open. I'm going through them whenever I go back to Haven. To be honest, it's not really contributing that much money. They often only have one item in them. The exception is the box at the smith's, which always refills with sizeable stacks of useful materials. I've been getting a lot more money just running around, since I'm doing all the rifts and power quests in the Hinterlands. I can hit up all the chests and stuff that are on my path. I'm level 6, my character has T2 gear made with T1 materials, and I just bought T2 schematics for the mages. Cassandra has a T2 weapon and shield, and she won't need T2 crafted armor, because there's a masterwork T2 armor drop in the mercenary fortress.

 

After I'm done with Hinterlands and Storm Coast, I'll continue the main quest and get to Skyhold. If I'm near level 12 at that point, I'll go ahead and do all of Here Lies the Abyss. If I have enough power after that, I'll do Wicked Eyes right away. If I have my Inquisition level up to 6, I'll be able to buy power at that point, and I should have quite a bit of money saved up. If I don't have to quest much for the power, I'll be under-leveled for the end game, but it shouldn't be too bad.

[PapaCharlie9]

Are you sticking with Nightmare? If you end up abandoning this run also (no shame in doing so), I'd highly suggest dropping down to Normal. To your point, that's what the devs designed for in terms of a straight-through run with no diversions for beefing up gear. It should be possible to do a Normal run with no exploits and minimal time wasted.

 

Yes, the box in the blacksmiths was my favorite stop in Haven. I rezoned at least 10 times just to build up cloth mats, since I was running a mage and Solas.

 

Also note that you only have to plan for Power points until you get 6 Influence. Then you can use Power for a Price to buy Power for the remaining zones.

 

Another tip: don't accept the first requisition you are given. I always quick save before talking to the officer and if I get one that requires too much time chasing random enemies or beasts, I reload and try again. Metal mats and herbs are easiest, so I try for those.

[Dai Grepher]

I think Champions of the Just would be easier since part of that quest is just running through your own head and ignoring all dialogue and fights.

 

I think the only real hard part would be protecting the templars while they break the barrier.

[badkenbad]

Quick update: I'm continuing the nightmare run. I'm just over 8 hours, the party just hit level 8, and I have 56 power. I'm done with every power quest in the Hinterlands except Champions of the Just, and I'm starting the Storm Coast. Happy with the progress so far.

 

Are you sticking with Nightmare? If you end up abandoning this run also (no shame in doing so), I'd highly suggest dropping down to Normal.

 

Another tip: don't accept the first requisition you are given. I always quick save before talking to the officer and if I get one that requires too much time chasing random enemies or beasts, I reload and try again. Metal mats and herbs are easiest, so I try for those.

 

I'm very interested in doing a zero-exploit Normal run after this. And yes, I'm definitely save scumming for easy requisitions. I don't consider that an exploit, since it's such a common feature of all kinds of games. Not doing that is for "hardcore" runs, and I'm far from hardcore.

 

BTW, Tier 2 materials started showing up in the Black Emporium when I reached level 8.

[badkenbad]

Nimesha (my Qunari archer) has arrived at Skyhold at the 13 hour mark with 63 power points available. I need 43 more power points to complete the game. I will get 18 from main quest rewards, 2 more from the Storm Coast, 21 from Crestwood, and 2 from camps in the Western Approach. Easy peasy, and not very time consuming. I did quite a few requisitions in the Hinterlands and Storm Coast, mostly just collecting ore as I was running around.

 

As expected, Champions of the Just (recommended level 4-7) was a cakewalk at level 9, and In Your Heart Shall Burn (recommended level 8-11) went quite smoothly at level 10. Nobody even came close to dying, and I had plenty of potions left over. Also, I got all the containment devices I need for my Tempest specialization quest from Red Templar drops in Therinfal Redoubt.

 

I've found a couple more errors in my power point calculations. The DA Wiki claimed that you get a power point for finding Lord Woolsley, but that is not the case (so I edited the wiki to fix that). Also, unlike the other companions, you don't get a power point for recruiting either Cole or Dorian.

 

Next steps are getting Skyhold in shape, getting my specialization, and deciding whether to continue on with Vivienne or replace her with Dorian. I really don't like Vivienne very much, but a Knight Enchanter may be more useful than a Necromancer.