Bryant Hawke Lives

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You must be thinking of the game Heavy Rain on the PS3. That game is AWESOME! Yes you get to put the moves on the girl using the control and if you do the wrong move, well I won't get into details.

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@MB

Now I can see why the Chantry and the Mages are ready to kill each other....after you complete year 1.

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I wonder what DLCs Bioware has planend for DAII or expansion. I seriously hope they help with Hawke's development.

 

Indeed. As I recall, this particular Templar was all too ready and willing to bring down the mage tower in DA:O. While it seems like he's maybe 1 or 2 notches better at his job now, he isn't exactly the cool, calm, and collected type like Knight Commander Greagoir was. In fairness, being good at being a templar doesn't exactly seem like an easy job.

 

If you played a female mage in DAO you can flirt with Cullen in DAO in the beginning of the mage origin.

 

@DR I experienced my first romance, with the steamy hot Isabela. My take is that they are about as awkward as they were in DA:O (again, I always found them to be somewhat out of place), but WAAAAY less sensual. It reminded me of some horny school kids making out on the bed.

* * * * *
As for the game overall, at this point I'm early in chapter 2. I'm not finding that the game feels linear at all, as I always seem to have a good number of side quests to take care of. Quests are grouped into rumors, main plot, companions, premium content, secondary quests and side quests. I finished everything there was to do in chapter 1, and now that I'm in chapter 2 I've received a whole bunch of new quests.

I'm still finding combat to be enjoyable. Some of the gore is over the top, but it looks cool, so what the hell. For the most part combat is easy, but there are a number of far more challenging battles thrown in to keep you humble. Playing as a mage I find that pause and play style is necessary to get the best results from your spells. To me, it's not so different than DA:O, so I will just have to agree to disagree with the many that feel combat has been ruined and dumbed down since DA:O. It still comes down to auto-attack and your selection of spells/talents. You can still assign tactics, but now you have more of them, so you're not so limited. You can still select your entire party... action just moves at a faster pace and AoE spells don't hurt your party. On the other hand, MOST spells are AoE in DA2, so a mage would be very limited if they hurt party members.

The story is great so far. I like the companions, but there isn't nearly as much opportunity to interact with them as there was in DA:O. As for corners being cut, there is no denying this. Most of the game takes place in 1 of a handful of areas. Some areas, like warehouses and caves are nearly identical... occassionally a new skin will be used for a more important area. That said, the way the story plays out makes this work better than I would have expected. Because the game occurs over a several year period of Hawke's life, you can come back to a lot of these same places later on, but the way you interact with them is different.

All in all, I'm still digging the game, and fully expect to play it through until completion. I will likely start a second run as a rogue. Is it a perfect game? Certainly not. Is DA2 as good as the original... hmm, I would have to say no overall. While it's nice not to have the end of the world on the horizon this time, DA:O seemed like a spare no expense sort of affair. DA2 is more of a make the critical stuff great, but cut corners where you can to keep on target with the agressive release schedule.

Did Bioware ruin what they had with DA:O? In my opinion, still, certainly not.

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Well, if the romances are less than glorious, I just encountered something in the game that MORE than made up for that:

Spoiler

I won't spoil too much, even in a spoiler, but let's just say that Aveline is getting tired of being single, and her efforts to deal with that make for one of the most real, and hilarious gaming situations I've encountered before. Truly, truly great. My appreciation for Aveline as a companion has just increased dramatically.

 

Yes... Just... yes.


I can say with absolute certainty that I enjoyed the game all the way through except for two things:

Spoiler

Why do I keep losing family members?!?!?!

and

Spoiler

That ending is HORSE****.

Still going to play through the game as a mage/rogue though

 

I heard the ending is made that way for the expansion.

 

Here comes one of my more critical posts about Dragon Age 2.

Dragon Age 2 is like a really hot girl who happens to be way too skinny. You'd go out with her without a second thought, but you'd constantly wish you could feed her a big, greasy cheeseburger to fatten her up a bit. What I mean by this is, a lot of corners have been cut with the game, presumably to allow it to ship on time in spite of a highly aggressive timeframe. I will give Bioware some credit in making what appear to be generally intelligent decisions in how and where to cut, but even still, the snipping effect is sometimes rather jarring.

*** Warehouses, Caves and Back Alleys, oh my! ***
The main place where they cut is in level design. Warehouses, back alleys, and caves tend to be rehashes of the same areas, with minor changes only from one to the next. In one warehouse you might be able to access certain sections, while in another you can access different sections, due to different doors being made selectable and other not. Trap placement, chest placement , etc is usually varied as well, but once you get familiar with these levels, you can’t escape the fact that you've “been here before” even if technically you haven’t. Of the various areas where corners were cut, this is the most troubling. Some of the more important of these areas are completely unique, but those are the exceptions.

*** Kirkwall, The Wounded Coast and Sundermount… oh my? ***
You also tend to spend your time in just a small handful of locations. Of course you spend most of your time in Kirkwall and its many districts. The city is masterfully created, so I don’t mind spending a lot of time there, but when I think of all of the amazing locations I got to visit in DA:O (e.g. Ostagar, Urn of Sacred Ashes, Orzamar (sp?), Denerim, etc) I can’t help but wish for a bit more variety in in DA2.

At the same time, this is one of the areas where I applaud Bioware for their creativity. Not every story needs to roam the full length and breadth of a continent, as is common in so many CRPGs. Coming back to these same areas at different points in Hawke’s life works well, but at the same time obviously has the benefit of requiring less development time over a game that takes you all over the world. I also think the idea of having the city having a distinct personality during the day and a completely different personality during the night is clever, and it works well. But there again, it sort of feels like there’s more to explore without a requirement to build completely new areas. You also spend a good amount of time on the Wounded Coast and Sundermount, which are areas in the outskirts of Kirkwall.

*** Armor, armor, and… okay, I give up! Let's call this "Point 3" ***
Even the concept of companions having pre-chosen armor, while it doesn’t necessarily bother me, is an obvious time saver for Bioware. Now they don’t have to worry about testing dozens of different armors to make sure they work on Dwarven bodies, human bodies, male bodies, female bodies, and otherwise gel with the various physical characteristics of your companions. The various armors just need to fit properly on and look good on Hawke.

Again this doesn’t particularly bother me, as it’s similar to another game that I love, Planescape Torment -- and in fact, provides a lot more options than that game did. Covering up Isabela’s ample curves with a bunch of heavy armor would be nothing short of a crime, and wouldn’t at all fit who she is. I also happen to feel that the companions, for the most part, look awesome. Sebastion’s armor is a work of art. The system to upgrade companion armor is interesting and innovative in its own way. Between this and the fact that you can equip rings, amulets, belts and weapons pretty much as you please (within class restrictions) still allows for some variety. On weapons, Varric is the exception as he can only use Bianca. I think this is cool actually, as it fits Varric’s personality. Bianca is a weapon that he loves and has no intention of parting with, and it’s exclusively what he chooses to use in combat. It also happens to kick plenty of ass.

There are other more minor points like the most limited dialogue options with your companions. I’m slightly annoyed that the highly manual method of distributing new game downloads from Mass Effect 2 has replaced the all but fully automated solution present in Dragon Age: Origins.

None of these things have ruined my enjoyment of the game. I think it’s going to go down in history as one of my favorite games, in fact. But I share this information in an effort to remain objective and honest with others who may be considering whether or not to pick the game up. I'm still in chapter 2, however, so my opinion is still something of a work in progress.

 

I agree with you 100%. I will add two more items….

Point 4 - Enemies

Enemies randomly appearing after you thought you beat the initial group. Enemy rogues being able to use stealth at will – at least that is how it felt for me on the console, and doing instant kills on Hawke or NPC that have low health.

Point 5 – Weapons

Random weapons found are mostly staves. I’m playing a rogue and all the mage NPC are already equipped with the best staves. Why not some nice daggers? Also, why do I have to access the inventory screen to swap out my weapons; in DAO I could setup a quick swap to my action menu allowing me to have two types of action menu – one for weapon 1 and another for weapon 2; that needs to be put back in place.

 

On point 4, I'm sort of liking this part. I don't see the additional enemies as "random" but as reinforcements, and I find that this makes for some exciting battles. As for rogues going into stealth... why should this be a problem if enemies do it? Your rogue can do it too, right? I'm actually surprised they are allowing some combats to be this difficult, pleasantly surprised in my case. I like the challenge. That said, more than likely they will tone this down in a patch. They did a similar tone down patch in Dragon Age Origins.

I haven't noticed the lack of daggers... maybe it's because I'm playing a mage. I do keep my eyes open for them, however, as I give the best ones I find to Isabela. It seems like I've found a good number of them, but probably have found more staves. I have heard that the game is a bit light on rogue weapons, so hopefully that will be addressed. I plan to run a rogue next, in fact.

I very much miss the quick swap feature for weapons from DA:O!! Good call on that!

 

I'm in ActIII at the moment, and the game feels very watered down. Combat is downright boring, i don't think i've had a challenging fight since becoming a champion. Fighting a zillion of slaver hunters in lowtown time and time again is, at first, satisfying in a evil wizard power obsessed laugh way, but it gets old if there's nothing challenging to compare itself to. There's a lot fewer side quests and one or two of those are bugged anyway. Overall, it hardly feels like another chapter has passed for Kirkwall, like it definitely did feel in Act I ->Act II transition.
This is an isolated case however, mostly combat is decently difficult. And i'm only playing on normal, without AoE abilities damaging party members. Legendary encounters especially do provide quite deep tactical possibilities, since now (as opposed to early game) you've the abilities to conjure up something effective without resorting to lame run-in-circles-while-the-rest-autoattack like in the beginning of the game (a certain Mature Dragon comes to mind), when bosses had too much health to be zerged down.

In a hurry atm, i'll edit/post more later.

 

I just got to Act III last night. Regarding challenging fights in Act III:

Spoiler

If you're looking for a tough fight in Act III, go to the Bone Pit. I got my ass handed to me there. I'm going to try again today when I get a chance to play. If I can't work it out I'll probably need to come back later. My party is level 19, by the way.

 

My party is level 18 and I'm still in Act II with a ton of stuff left to do and no I did not cheat using the money and XP glitch.

 

I hit 19 when I won the final battle in Act II. I think I was level 18 for a good portion of Act II also, so that sounds about right. I have done every quest that has been presented to me. A lot of the quests in Act II are filler. Some are just interactions with your companions that don't yield any experience. If you're using items that grant additonal experience, that might give you a bit of an edge on me in that regard.

 

I think i've been in the same zone as Marceror. Not exactly sure, since i've had to backtrack somewhat because i took Arcane Wall upgrade to Arcane Shield and it doesn't work as the tooltip says.

Yeah, that's what i had in mind when mentioning legendary battles. More or less nonessential encounters (think from Firkraag to Twisted Rune in bg2) that are _the_ challenge of the game. I'm gnawing on this guy Hybris right now, he's a rock.
They're quite far beyond anything else, as is proper i guess.

I may be speaking out of place here, since i haven't tried all the abilities in the game, but in a few of these encounters, Walking Bomb from spirit magic branch has been the major hinge on which victory balanced. A certain three-revenant encounter in Act III is made uncomparatively easy with focus zerging one revenant down and blowing him for 15k damage on the other two. The spell is a variant of Diablo's Corpse Explosion, you cast it on a living enemy, then you've 10 seconds to kill him, he then explodes and does his max hp damage in a fairly small radius. It comes handy in boss-with adds fights as well.
Any other abilities that shine so disproportionately in ideal circumstances?

 

My mage is a pretty standard elemental build. Fire and ice baby. It's simple, but effective. I have arcane shield fully maxed out also, but I can't really tell if it's helping me. I can't tell if I'm actually getting the defense and resistance bonuses, or if my companions are getting them. I do get a very dramatic spell effect around Hawke that is hard to look at for extended periods of time (I'm glad that these effects only show themselves during combat).

I'm using Cold Blooded as my staff so I'm particularly effective with cold based magic. It doesn't seem like a lot of enemies have much cold resistance, so it's consistently useful. And even the raw damage from my staff is pretty impressive. Outside of that, I have some of the force mage spells, which are nice. I'm likely going to try to obtain everything in that category to try it out.

I gave walking bomb to Merrill, but as I don't use her much, I haven't really seen what it's capable of. I'm certainly not coming anywhere close to 15k damage with what I'm using. A couple thousand damage on a lucky cold spell is about the best I've done so far.

 

Check their attribute page with arcane shield on/off. It should effect the defense %. I checked on Avelines with the 10% buff and it increased defense by 6%. I'm not sure how the numbers work lol. It'll adjust their defense % even if not their raw #.

 

Okay, interesting. I don't think I had ever turned the ability off since upgrading it. The ability was activated but there was no benefit shown on my companions' attribute pages. After turning the ability off, then on, I see some bonuses for them.

Hawke also has some bonuses, but in no case do they exactly match what the ability says they should be. I should have 20% to all resistances for example. Hawke gets 15%. The rest get 5%. Okay. Defense doesn't seem to match either.

I think there are still some glitches to be worked out with certain sustained abilities. I notice that my sustained ability to add elemental damage to my party's weapons occasionally needs to be toggled off, then on to work.

On another note, last night my uncle made this completely inappropriate comment about my girlfriend:

Spoiler

"So, I hear you've been slipping it to that pirate sl*t from The Hanged Man! The b*tch turned me down flat!"

And he sounded waaay to excited when he said it. Bad, bad uncle!

 

As far as abilities go for a mage the ones I found useful are all the nice passives. Force mage go deep enough to get the, i forget exact name, but unless a boss pushes you around normal mobs wont interrupt your spells.

Also the spirit healer is quite nice as in battle if you need a heal or someone fell in battle just click it on click the spell and click it back off

I found also that you just about have to go fire ice or spirit if you want gear to give you + percent dmg. Until act 3, way to late, is when I finally saw some non random good nature dmg gear

An overlooked, from different forums ive read, companion is Fenris. His lyrium ghost stuff and 2handed weapon talents make him a powerhouse competing with my mage for top dmg honors.

Just on a side note


Varric is the best NPC ever with his Bianca banter hahaha.

Enjoy yer game gents.

 

I chose Blood Mage over Spirit Healer for my second specialization. I'm not actually playing as a Blood Mage, but the extra hit points seemed like a nice perk. Whereas the extra mana for Spirit Healer, when I so rarely even get low on mana, seemed less useful. I didn't like that Spirit Healer didn't allow other spells to be cast. I didn't really explore the possibility of turning it on and off, as that wasn't really the direction I saw Hawke going.

Unrelated Note - Warning: Apparently there's some sort of bug with Sebastion and Isabella, if they become your friends. The bonus to damage reduction and speed that they give can actually be counted negatively against your base stats in certain circumstances, like if they are automatically removed from your party (such as when you enter the Hawke estate). Apparently some people have had their Hawke's attacking in slow motion and with serious negative damage reduction after this occurring numerous times during the game.

You are well advised not to become friends with them until the bug is fixed. Unfortunately for me, they are both friends, but I'm not aware that I've been affected by the bug yet. I plan to stop using them in my party.

Follow up on difficult battle:

Spoiler

I just completed the battle at the Bone Pit in Act III. It was haaaaaard, and fun. The rewards were fantastic. Varric died near the end of the battle. Hawke, Aveline, and Sebastion (last time I plan to use him) managed to stay alive. Oh, and Munchkin (my Mabari) died once also. It's best to have a minimum of melee fighters for this.

 

Spoiler

I had 2 myself (warrior), isabela, varric and anders for this fight. If anders were a better healer I think it would've been much easier, but a lot of running around so the dragons fire balls didn't hit my characters . Helps that isabela was doing 200 dps (base in stats page)... gogo rogue talents to drop/give threat to my warrior

On a side-note. I like that having a shield is not a requirement of tanking until Nightmare . I hate the world of warcraft system of groups. As much as some people maybe be tired of D&D, tanking with a 2hander and full plate is still the best ever .


Also it appears that blood magic items stack (according to some gamespot forum posts), so I'm going to test this with a few pieces and see if I can get 7+mana/1health