How do you know which location is the right difficulty for you?
 

I started out with the game set on Normal difficulty and it was no challenge at all. I don't think Iused a single health poultice all the way through the prologue. Then when we reached the first village after picking up Morrigan (I forget the name) I turned it up to Hard and that seemed about right.

Then I headed off to the Bracilian forest to help the Dalish but I couldn't kill the dragon in the ruins. So I left and went to Redcliffe but that was too hard too. I have turned it back down to Normal now which I didn't like doing (I like to choose a difficulty and stick to it or I feel like I'm cheating). And I don't like leaving an area unfinished either. But how are you supposed to know which location is suited to your level?

I've noticed a couple of threads about scaling, but if the difficulty was scaled why are some battles impossible? I got that dragon down to a half it's health before it wipes me out no matter what I try. Do I just suck? Perhaps I'm not buffing enough but I don't know what buffs there are. I poison my weapons, and I've enchanted the three weapons I have that can take enchantments but that's all I can do.

I'm a rogue, I have Alistair, the dog and Morrigan. Would someone have any tips?

Thank you.

I think that rogue is probably the most difficult class to play on the first playthrough.
They´re not that strong in combat unless you boost their dual wielding skills and it also means you can have only one mage in your party for some time, while on hard two mages are almost a must imo.

I´ve chosen this order with my mage on hard:
Redcliffe, Mage Tower, Brecilian Forest, Denerim, main quest location not yet revealed for you, now I´m in Orzammar.
This order worked pretty smooth combat-wise so I´d recommend either that or, since you´re not playing a mage, you should consider doing Mage Tower first because

Btw, quite recently I´ve given Leliana a ranger specialization and was quite surprised how strong animal companions are. Especially if you´re going the archer route, I´d recommend trying it out. It effectively gets you a fifth party member (a bit weaker than the rest, but still) and the bear is quite good as tank.

I just killed that dragon at level 12 a couple of days ago. I'd suggest getting a few levels from side quests. Doing the Mage tower fairly early is very good advice for a number of reasons!!

That's no dragon, that's a mini-dragon or maybe a dragon child. You'll see what I mean soon enough.

The level scales so, no matter which way you go, it will be scaled to your level. (Though I'm not sure what happens if you encounter the young dragon, run away, then come back after gaining some levels.) However, the difficulty does definitely go up after level 7 or so. Then it gets harder. Then it stays pretty hard. My advice is to keep it on normal. You're not cheating, you just got tricked into a false sense of security by those cunning developers. ;)

The game is definitely a thinking game. Rogues are the champions at it but all characters benifit when they attack from behind (at least against most enemies). Spreading out allows you to not get wiped by big AoE attacks. You might also try running past the drake (or, more specifically, past all those #*!$!&@ traps) to a place better suited to surrounding it. Think about tactics. Think about why it's doing so well against you and see if there's some way to shrink that advantage. Think about why you can't use certain attacks and how you might arrange things differently so you can use them.

Crowd control. That's the key. Give Morrigan Cone of Cold for example. Use the dog to stun (he's got an aoe stun). You are going to struggle like crazy without a lot of crowd control.

The mini dragon for example is easy if you permanently cone of cold it..

You're playing on hard and it's a hard experience? ;)

Anyway, I've been playing on hard and I'm finding it very fitting to my style. It was a bit of a challenge learning the intricacies of the system - but now I find the vast majority of fights a breeze.

The game is deliberately forgiving during the prologue - so I don't think you can use that experience as a general guide. But don't give up because of a hard fight. Learning the game means dying until you know why you die, and then moving from there.

It's my experience that if you don't enjoy the challenge, you shouldn't be playing on hard.

You need a healer. Even first level heal on Morrigan helps a lot. If you have Wynn (a full time healer) things are walk in the park.

You can turn Morrigan into a full time healer as well. I always do. I just find the Spirit Healer subclass to be too powerful to ignore - healing the whole party at once is amazing.

I personally play with 2 healers, and that makes especially boss fights easier than perhaps they should be.

Also, if you have Stone Prisoner installed - Shale is almost gamebreakingly powerful as a tank.

I actually stopped using him partially for this reason, but also because I enjoy outfitting "normal" tanks with gear and such.

I said I started out on Hard but went back to Normal because it was too hard.

Sorry, it was confusing because you actually said you started on normal, then went to hard, then normal again :)

In any case, this is EXACTLY why I don't support multiple difficulty levels. I know it's necessary if you want a decent challenge for enthusiast gamers - because you can't make a game "hard" as the only option nowadays.

But, as a gamer, you're forced into "meta-gaming" and you start second-guessing whether it's right for you or not.

So, my only suggestion is to stick with one or the other - based on how much you enjoy a challenge.

I can only say that I'm quite far into the game, and I find it VERY managable on hard difficulty. I'm not all that clever or tactical - I just spend some time using my common sense and experience.

You can do the same and learn how the game can be beaten, or you can set it to easy and not worry about it. Again, if you don't enjoy the challenge of figuring these things out, then I don't see why you should be punishing yourself.

But that's just me.

The new patch (1.01) will make normal a bit easier by increasing party damage a bit. Currently, normal is a rather close to hard, so that makes sense.

I'd like to be the kind of gamer that can think things out like that but it just doesn't come to me. Like if this little dragon is kicking my ass I ask myself, well, why is this dragon kicking my ass and what can I do? Well, it does a lot of damage and it's really fast. And nothing really comes to mind how I can negate that. Lol.

I have two basic tactics; for groups I try to lure one or two out at a time, which sometimes works. And for one big bad ass type I have it chase one party memeber while the other engage it with ranged weapons. Other than that making sure the entire group is selected so they mass their attacks, and trying to maneuver to the flanks when I can, that's the only thing I can think of. Just tactics 101 really.

I'm just about coping with it on Normal, and it's better now I've got Wynn. I don't know what I'd do without her though. I'd run out of healing poultices pretty quick. But I'll be damned if I'm going to put it on Easy. I've been playing these games for years, and I'll be god damned if I'm going to resort to Easy!

Oh and I also tend to choose character that I like rather than what tactical contributions they can make so that probably doesn't help.

How do you do that? Do you have to unlock a specialisation or does she already have spells available? I admit I've just been auto levelling her up to this point. I don't have much interest in magic and just sort of let her do her own thing, and that probably doesn't help.

You need to pick the spells yourself on level ups. If you just auto-level Morrigan, I doubt you'll ever get healing spells for her (I'm guessing her auto-level scheme is more damage dealing oriented). So turn auto-levelling off, at least until the next level up for Morrigan, and select one healing spell for her. And viola, now Morrigan can heal!

Well, there's the key to why you might have been struggling a bit with the game. Magic is the key in this game. For instance, Morrigan comes with a frost spell - you could, for instance have frozen the baby dragon and put horror on it to stun it, while doing damage to it with your DPS guys. I had found the baby dragon a complete walk in the park, btw, (but admittedly I was playing on "normal" there)especially since I encountered it after having fought its big mother…

Personally, I would have advised you to go to Lothering first though, just as the game advises you to do, so that you could pick up a an additional companion or two there, (and level them up manually).

That's what I did.

I'll definitely pay more attention when levelling Morrigan. Thanks everyone.

I just tried doing Orzammar first. It's virtually impossible. It definetly does not scale down to the players level - there's a minimum level involved. The first mage I met (Bounty Hunter) spammed me with Chain Lightning and butchered my whole party in no time. I very much doubt it's even possible to complete Orzammar early on. Going Lothering -> Redcliffe is recommended.

I'd recommend going to the Tower of the Magi after Lothering to get Wynne in your party (if you want a healer) and some nice benefits for yourself.

True, but the tower can be quite hard, and once you're in, there's no turning back if you suddenly find it too difficult.