DA2 Dragon Age 2 Play thread

Dragon Age 2
Normal mode is so easy no tactics are required. Hard and nightmare are there for people who want to play that way.

If you think everything is dying too fast to use tactics on in nightmare… well… that would be amazing.

I'm on hard at the moment, I think Nightmare would be a bit too much for my blood.

Generally this far I've found that by the time i've made sure all the small enemies are wiped out then the big bosses aren't too bad, and they generally don't dish out so much damage that I can't just ignore them while mopping up the small ones.

Maybe my memory is faulty but I remember DAO having some enemies that you just wanted to keep frozen / crushed / out of action while mopping up the others because otherwise they'd wipe you out.
 
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DA2 definitely has those enemies... the assassin's will kill you in one hit on nightmare from a total stealth position and you can't do anything about it. The Qunari mages are killers with their lightning explosion spells, plus they teleport.

I'm playing on hard as well and there are definitely tense fights where I need to focus on one enemy and plan a good strategy.
 
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Oh, I agree they're not all completely the same, it's just disappointing that there's (so far) less balance between fights where the challenge is multiple enemies and fights where the challenge is a single major foe that you have to weaken to take down.
But for me there are in between, there are fights with many enemy and one strong opponent long to killed and rather dangerous anyway, some similar but with two strong opponents to manage, some with many enemy but one very dangerous opponent so dangerous that you better control it or kill it fast, some with myriad of weaker opponents but if you don't manage it well they can build a total damage rate quite dangerous, there are some with quite more not that strong opponents but quite long to kill, and so on. Also the type of the stronger opponents could generate very different fights, for example manage one or two strong assassin, is different than manage a demon, a golem, or one or two blood mage. I also noticed that if the Thaig part is once more too linear the change is huge in diversity on any point of view, look, enemies and fights setup.

I feel I'm using less tactics and cross class stuff because most of the opponents just die so quickly that I never get time to really line stuff up.
At reverse I got the feeling death tend take much more time to happen in DA2, but I could be wrong, or it's a matter of party setup.
 
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The Isabela choice at the end of chapter two is stupid. I hadn't used her at all because my Hawke is a duel-wield rogue, so our relationship was basically that I saved her ass for some money 3 years prior. So she asks me to stop important stuff I am doing to help her get a thing and I say okay I guess, but it ends up she's been lying the whole time and is causing major problems in the city. I want to stop her, to kill her and take the thing back to its rightful owner, yet the game still forces me to help her. I said no, no, no and then no again and then off I went to kill a bunch of people for her.

GOD I hate that in an RPG.
 
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Hmm, played the game for several hours. It's certainly feel less tactical than DA:O, but not a bad game either. Need to play further to get better assessment of the game.
 
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I'm kind of frustrated by the difference in difficulty.

Normal is just plain easy. Too easy. So I switch to Hard. Playing on Hard, many fights are also really easy, but then you run into some that impossible seeming to me. There's an instance in the main story where you go up as a party to a group of people and talk to them. At least one of the conversation trees leads to a battle. You are instantly surrounded by the enemy with no real chance to assemble tactically. My mage just kept getting knocked down. And I died over and over. Put it back to Normal and it's a little challenging but doable.

Ah, well.
 
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I gave up Hard for the boss battles at end of chapters 1&2. And I gave up at Hard the battle BEFORE what's probably the last Black Book, at least the fourth book and I don't want know yet what's the battle after to take the book, lol well I wanted keep it for a replay. The black book quest is over now in chapter 3, but the cavern entrance still here, I haven't bother yet enter here, prefer not know what's there in chapter 3, lol.

I don't remember at all the battle you mention. Perhaps you could refresh my memory with a quest name and a location in a spoil tag?

For some fights I beat them on Hard but applied some DAO tactics of isolation. It depends a lot of your spells and talents but I'm surprised you can have at least the first move. In similar cases (there's more than one dialog that can be concluded by a fight start) it's not fully normal your mage get all the agro on start. But as my party always have two mages I possibly never quoted it well. So a first try is perhaps take with you another mage to see.

Other than than try all other member attack and your mage only retreat, and one fighter could try some quick AOE attack. Then it depends a lot of your spells and talents.

Also even if your mage is knockdown at beginning of fight it's not the end of the fight, have all other members support him for this fight start, Rogue have some AEO control, 2H have some quick AOE attack to win few time for your mage, possibly a fighter or a rogue could have some agro skill that could help. Also another mage could help your mage, there's many different spells for that.

For me the Hard level is still better than Nightmare was at my first play in DAO. For more casual fights, I often still need put some concentration on what I'm doing and how it turns otherwise I could lost it. For the quests significant fights, like after a dialog, I continue lost some, but it's rare I have to replay one more than once. For sure when there's new type of enemies or new special combination of opponents the elements of surprise and discovery increase significantly the chance to lost. It's clear that all those modern RPG need more enemy diversity, I don't mean graphics, but for good gameplay this involves also new graphics.

I suspect that when I'll replay, a playable Nightmare mode will be missing. I'll use a mod removing Friendly Fire in Nightmare but the comments about this difficulty level let think it won't work very well. Well I'm not much confident in players comments about this game, too many are so far from my feeling. But I don't remember any good comment about this difficulty mode, perhaps without FF it will be roughly ok, at least I didn't read much comment about that.

About that Nightmare mode involving long fights, I smile when I read ton of comment complaining fights can be too long and I'm sure the same complain DA2 isn't Hardcore enough. They should have played old games. There was some memorable endurance fights in Pool of Radiance, quite more than 30mn but well it's turn based.
 
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It was in the quest:

"Shepherding Wolves" where you escort the chained Qunari out of the city, and a big group of Qunari confront you when you exit the tunnels. This is a perfect example, as the spiders in the tunnels were really easy on Hard mode, and the fight just outside the tunnel was extremely difficult

Reminder to all to please hide spoilers in this thread. Thanks.
 
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Hard mode is really difficult when you are facing either a boss or a large group of ranged enemies like archers or the Qunari spearmen. The knockback on ranged enemies is IN-sane.

It's annoying because most fights are a breeze even on hard but then you will stumble across one that is almost impossible because they start you in the middle of nowhere surround by archers or something.
 
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Yes, so far that's my main problem with the game. A more minor issue is that I am having a hard time understanding what's going on. I'm still in the first part (haven't gone to the deep roads yet) and the way some of the storyline is presented is confusing or at least vague... But I still am grateful I wasn't thrown into a save the world scenario.
 
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So a comment about this fight, all in spoil too:
Mmm yeah I remember this fight, for sure not one of the easy, but I admit I don't remember my mage being assault and knock down asap. You can flee that sort of enemy fighter well, unlike some beasts, assassins like or long range.

If a character is harassed for some reason try use some flee covered by companions. Make the character flee and companions attack or block those following him. If I remember well it's a fight where it's better not concentrate first on the boss but have a fighter or a long range rogue take him busy when you concentrate on other warriors.

Also quote the terrain have some corridor like passages, it's dangerous to get cornered but you could move the whole fight at a better place than the open position where it starts. It's particularly true if you have enough control spells or talents to block close range fighters. That's the good point of this fight there's no long range if I remember well, and you can exploit it.
 
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Hard mode is really difficult when you are facing either a boss or a large group of ranged enemies like archers or the Qunari spearmen. The knockback on ranged enemies is IN-sane.

It's annoying because most fights are a breeze even on hard but then you will stumble across one that is almost impossible because they start you in the middle of nowhere surround by archers or something.
That probably depend of the party and talents and spells you develop. But there was many Archers in that fight? Lol so I didn't remember well that point and part of my previous post in spoil tag is then quite wrong. :)

Archer aren't a special problem for my party well mages is another matter but it depends of the mage type, blood mage continue surprise me mainly by having one that skip through my attention. But also my party has constantly 3 long range, perhaps it makes the difference and that's an important reason I don't see a problem with long ranges.

My experience about the difficulty is more even, the final quest fights or final for a quest part are always those harder, plus some before can cause some troubles too. Also in dungeons there's often some optional fights that are quite harder and close or even harder to final fight of a quest part. Other fights tend follow a sort of progression with only some possibly causing me some troubles or some rare lost if I lost my attention on the fight.

Just my experience of it but for me the chapter 1 had a too high density of significant fights. This isn't all positive because when it happens, you replay some too often, need often a strong concentration and you end lost track of the story or mini story progression.

EDIT: For all characters I didn't neglect the CON which is with items the only way to increase HP. All my characters have at least 20 since level 14-16. That perhaps help making archer less a threat.
 
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Yes, so far that's my main problem with the game. A more minor issue is that I am having a hard time understanding what's going on. I'm still in the first part (haven't gone to the deep roads yet) and the way some of the storyline is presented is confusing or at least vague… But I still am grateful I wasn't thrown into a save the world scenario.

If there's a real story line in chapter 1 then I didn't noticed it. They should have build one main thread dedicated to chapter 1 only. It seems they made the choice to use multiple different small story to setup a general mood of a non hero character not (yet) in center of attention of the town and not even of many people. It's also the occasion to take many little decision to orientate the player character. But not sure many have real consequences, I don't know. I liked it and this different design with more freedom, but this point is only half successful. Chapter 2 is organized differently but it's only about at half of chapter 2 that you'll get more the feeling of a main global story. Well at least it's the feeling I had.
 
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Not sure if this would be a spoiler but how do you keep carver alive? I've restarted 4 times twice male twice female and the second ogre kills him every time.
 
Not sure if this would be a spoiler but how do you keep carver alive? I've restarted 4 times twice male twice female and the second ogre kills him every time.
To keep Carver alive you have to roll a mage.
Choices and consequences!
 
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To keep Carver alive you have to roll a mage.
Choices and consequences!

oh thanks, guess i'll never have carver no interest in being a mage. Tried it in dao, just like the rouge better. Not sure I could handle 2 play throughs anyway. Probably just go back for my 4th play through of dao. We'll see after the poor reception to da2 maybe they will make some changes and make some great dlc.
 
oh thanks, guess i'll never have carver no interest in being a mage. Tried it in dao, just like the rouge better. Not sure I could handle 2 play throughs anyway. Probably just go back for my 4th play through of dao. We'll see after the poor reception to da2 maybe they will make some changes and make some great dlc.

He still doesn't stay with you the entire game anyway. You get a much better 2-hand sword character to replace him.
 
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To keep Carver alive you have to roll a mage.
Choices and consequences!
Your irony isn't well targeted because you'll keep Carver later only depending of some choices, well from what I read, not from what I tried.
 
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Your irony isn't well targeted because you'll keep Carver later only depending of some choices, well from what I read, not from what I tried.

Either he joins the Templars when you return from the Deep Roads, or he joins the Grey Wardens when you're about to exit the Deep Roads. There is an option of him rejoining you at the very end of the game, but he'll never stay inbetween.

Still, Fenris is much better anyway.
 
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Your irony isn't well targeted because you'll keep Carver later only depending of some choices, well from what I read, not from what I tried.
Better find some more reliable sources ;).

Either he joins the Templars when you return from the Deep Roads, or he joins the Grey Wardens when you're about to exit the Deep Roads. There is an option of him rejoining you at the very end of the game, but he'll never stay inbetween.

He may also die in Deep Roads if you don´t have Anders with you. At any rate, you don´t really "keep" him once act 1 ends no matter what.
 
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