DA:O A Couple Issues - Comments?

Dragon Age: Origins

ToddMcF2002

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A couple issues, looking for comments:

1. I can't zoom far enough out and there is no intermediate camera tilt / zoom. If I press page up / page down during combat it won't let you pick a midpoint. The issue there is that the combat area is quite large especially when there are archers. Tactically it is very difficult to see all the opponents without switching to another character, zooming all the way in and using free look. Comments? Am I missing something? At this point I'd gladly take the Dungeon Siege camera over this one.

2. Tactics. I'm playing with them completely disabled. Anyone else or am I alone in that?
 
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1. Dunno, i use WASD together with right mouse button to control character, plus mouse wheel and i don't feel much problem with camera.

2. I'm in the Wild now with 3 characters following me into several combat session. What is the issue?
 
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I micro manage my group. I feel the transition from Neverwinter nights 2 to Dragon Age and evolving how the game plays is almost zero. Not that i have any problem with that, but i was surprised that it didn't change more. Group AI is still hit and miss. I tried to play with tactics, but its not worth it. I feel. Not yet. 12 hours in.

The camera i learned to live with.

It have taken awhile to get this game come to me. I loved the beginning but then it felt blend and to colorless. Now however the characters starting to grew on my. 12 hours in and i am starting to feel "connected". From very "bleah" to i want more. Hopefully it will really take off from now on.
 
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I am finding the tactics to be very useful and powerful. My complaint, however, is that they have tied extra tactic slots to a SKILL called combat tactics. (Yes, I know you sometimes get them at level up too, but that is not frequent enough). Now if you only had to have ONE person take the skill and it effect everyone's tactic slots, I could maybe see making that sacrifice. But skill upgrades are SO infrequent, I just can't make that deal right now.

To make it fun, they should allow you to fill up many more slots for free. Say between 7 and 10. Then if you want more individually, take the CT skill ranks. As it is now, I find myself lacking the room to code out specific situations I want my people to do. I'd rather not have to micromanage EVERY battle - only the big, MAJOR ones (as I did in BG2).

So far, this has been a pretty edge of your seat combat experience for the most part. I mean, I WANT some of the battles to be nail-biters. But not ALL of them. I think they tipped things a bit too far (on NORMAL, that is). Course I'm only level 8 now -- plenty of ways to go.

The other complaint I have is that there seems to be no way to auto-pause after an enemy as been killed. This was a KEY indicator I used in the BG / Icewind Dale games to make sure I efficiently ordered my people when I was doing everything manually.
 
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That's my biggest beef with the tactics system. IMO every slot should be open at the start. Skill points are way too sparse to be spending them on that. Hopefully that will be one of the first things someone mods.
 
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I do find the individual tactics for each member useful, since I would for instance set my tank on a more agressive stance, and my rangers and magic users more passive and ranged. Otherwise, they just run every which way when you get a bit bored with micro-managing.

As for zooming out, I seem to be able to zoom out until everything is just tiny dots on my screen...-definitely far enough for me, in fact farther than necessary really.. :D
Keep in mind that for most ranged shots, you can see as far as your character's range of attack is, even when not zoomed out.
 
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As for zooming out, I seem to be able to zoom out until everything is just tiny dots on my screen…-definitely far enough for me, in fact farther than necessary really.. :D
Keep in mind that for most ranged shots, you can see as far as your character's range of attack is, even when not zoomed out.

What? I can only zoom out to the equivalent of about 30 feet. Tiny dots??? How did you manage that???
 
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I suppose it depends if you find yourself in an open area or if you are hedged in like in a dungeon area. I've just now had a bit of trouble with the camera in a dungeon, I must admit, but I sorta managed when using the keyboard panning commands. These are a pain, though usually just using the RMB panning helps, by tiliting the view up or down.

Are you having problems fitting all your enemies in from a directly overhead view?
Then you should perhaps zoom in one notch, an tilt your camera for a far view from a slightly lower, more isometric vantage point.

I will agree with you though, that the zooming is a bit of a pain in that it zooms in too large increments. I tried to set this to less sensitive in the options menu, but it didn't seem to make a difference. :(

EDIT: Ok, I apologize if I exaggerated a bit with the "tiny dots"... :p
 
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I like having full tilt-pan-and-zoom control, but the system they use is working well enough for me.

As for tactics, I rarely manage my party except in big fights.
 
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I like having full tilt-pan-and-zoom control, but the system they use is working well enough for me.

Agreed. I prefer being able to pan in all directions, up and down, & 360deg. without having to depress a button, though.
 
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Yeah it would have been nice if they included an option to lock the view to the middle of the screen with the ability to toggle on/off at will.
 
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I like having full tilt-pan-and-zoom control, but the system they use is working well enough for me.

As for tactics, I rarely manage my party except in big fights.

I've started letting my magic user keep her tactics enabled. So far she is making all the right decisions and staying ranged. Everyone else is manual.

The game is great, but I still think the Camera needs work. More zoom range and a free tilt. Its not like that would be alot of development. Not sure why they decided to implement such a limiting system.
 
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I don't like bows!! :) Swords; the BIGGER the better!!!! :p
 
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I have to agree on the whole camera thing. I just can't find the "middle road" here - either it's zoomed in too far, or it's zoomed out perfectly fine, but the camera is "stuck" (height/angle). I'd prefer the zoomed out version, but at a slightly different angle (so it was possible to see what's up ahead).
 
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My character walking in 1st scene with a sword instead of a bow = this game sucks.
There must be a law banning swords from video games so everyone uses a bow.
This game is as bad as Risen .

Well maybe you should have chosen a class/origin combo that starts with a bow... they do exist.

As for tactics, I have set up some basic comands like to use a healing pot at very low health. Use taunt when there are multiple mobs. I also have tactics to put on the buffs that I want on at all times.

It's a very flexible system, I use it to automate some basic stuff but mostly I control the whole party myself. It's nice to not have to worry about forgetting to put spell wisp on, for instance. Nice to know that characters won't die when they could have easily not died if they just used a pot.
 
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My character walking in 1st scene with a sword instead of a bow = this game sucks.
There must be a law banning swords from video games so everyone uses a bow.
This game is as bad as Risen .


I'm starting to feel sorry for you. It must be tough to have standards that are so high that everything seems bad to you. ;)
 
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I was very frustrated because i had to fight with swords , i only found a bow in a village (which is like 2 hours later- Human/ Archer character) , Devs thought of everything but that which is kind of unfair .

I am playing on easy with tactics off , so far it does look easy which is good , most games don't understand that those playing on easy couldn't care less about challenges and overdo it ( like in the Witcher where my character died like 5 times on easy...) .
I am spending some few minutes trying to understand how buffs work i will try positioning next , if this isn't as complex as battle of Tanneberg i will also play the game in normal.
 
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I was very frustrated because i had to fight with swords, I only found a bow in a village (which is like 2 hours later- Human/ Archer character) , Devs thought of everything but that which is kind of unfair .

I am playing on easy with tactics off, so far it does look easy which is good, most games don't understand that those playing on easy couldn't care less about challenges and overdo it ( like in the Witcher where my character died like 5 times on easy…) .
I am spending some few minutes trying to understand how buffs work I will try positioning next, if this isn't as complex as battle of Tanneberg I will also play the game in normal.

My Dalish Elf Warrior came to Ostagar with a crossbow and about 6 spare bows which I handed out to the rest of my party.
I think it's a fairly common convention for Elves to be the archers in this kind of fantasy game, where humans tend to be versatile, and dwarves tend to swing around sledgehammers and battleaxes.

Hang on! I've just checked a gamesave from just before my human warrior left the castle and there are 3 elm shortbows and one elm longbow in my inventory. Did you get your equipment out of the chest like the game prompts you to do? Don't you ever loot fallen enemies? I had found all the abovementioned bows just in the Castle Cousland environment alone.

The only character that I've done so far, that doesn't go to Ostagar with at least 3 bows, is the mage. But my mage went with a bunch of spare staffs, though! :D

Oh, and btw, in the Tower of Ishal, in the weapon rack on the third floor, you find an Ash shortbow.

As for the difficulty grade, I admit that I have not come very far with the main story yet, (only done up to the tower of Ishal by now) since I'd been playing all the "Origins" first, but I've so far done all of the origin stories except for the two dwarven ones, and so far I'm finding it pretty easy on normal setting.

As for The Witcher, it was easy on normal setting and not all that hard on "hard" either, as long as you kept using your potions.

If you really thought the Witcher was hard, you would do yourself a favour not to get yourself either Drakensang or any of the Pirhana Bytes (Gothic) games, (including Risen). They are much, much harder than The Witcher.

I suppose it's hard to categorize the difficulty level of DA, since there are four settings.
 
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My Dalish Elf Warrior came to Ostagar with a crossbow and about 6 spare bows which I handed out to the rest of my party.
I think it's a fairly common convention for Elves to be the archers in this kind of fantasy game, where humans tend to be versatile, and dwarves tend to swing around sledgehammers and battleaxes.

Hang on! I've just checked a gamesave from just before my human warrior left the castle and there are 3 elm shortbows and one elm longbow in my inventory. Did you get your equipment out of the chest like the game prompts you to do? Don't you ever loot fallen enemies? I had found all the abovementioned bows just in the Castle Cousland environment alone.

The only character that I've done so far, that doesn't go to Ostagar with at least 3 bows, is the mage. But my mage went with a bunch of spare staffs, though! :D

As for the difficulty grade, I admit that I have not come very far with the main story yet, (only done up to the tower of Ishal by now) since I'd been playing all the "Origins" first, but I've so far done all of the origin stories except for the two dwarven ones, and so far I'm finding it pretty easy on normal setting.

As for The Witcher, it was easy on normal setting and not all that hard on "hard" either, as long as you kept using your potions.

If you really thought the Witcher was hard, you would do yourself a favour not to get yourself either Drakensang or any of the Pirhana Bytes (Gothic) games, (including Risen). They are much, much harder than The Witcher.

I suppose it's hard to categorize the difficulty level of DA, since there are four settings.

I did open all the chests i could and looted some opponents but they only had potions , also i empty the chest near my bed , no bow there either.
I was very unlucky in the forest because although i searched all ranged opponents i didn't found any bow as loot.
Anyway my point is that a bow (or a mague staff , or a polearm ) should be in start choices or presented right in front of your eyes at the very beginning.

I have already bought Risen but didn't like it at all, Gothic was not that bad but definitely not one of my favourites ( I am TES fanboy) , i always get first runs (sometime second too) on easy and most games don't do it right . I shouldn't be forced to use any potions in the Witcher and so far it is okay not having to use any tactics in DO.
 
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