Dragon Age Difficulty

[Zenoth]

Mages are just too powerful right now in the game, both in your team or the enemies, basically to fight one or multiple enemy mages you need one mage in your party as well, in fact having at least one mage in your party all the time is pretty much required.

I have tried a full melee party on many occasions and I had to play on Easy to achieve anything, also playing with too many melee characters is way too expensive both in terms of gold and health potions as well as ingredients to create more potions, it's just insane, by the time you finally get enough cash to buy that one item you wanted you realize that you only have two potions left and you end up buying more potions at ridiculous prices because you don't have ingredients anymore and buying better quality potion recipes will ruin your bank account to dust, forcing you to loot items from random mobs.

It's also my only real complain in this game, it's not "encouraging" you to use mage(s) in your team, it's forcing you to do so if you don't want frustrating outcomes. Also add to that the horrendous loading times and it makes trials and errors barely playable. I remember in my very first Origin I played, on Normal difficulty, there was that one battle in the Deep Roads where I faced a rather small group of Darkspawn in which there was a single Emissary (Darkspawn mage), his God dammed fireball and poison attacks raped my team to oblivion even if I turned in down to Easy (full melee team, no mage, one rogue, three "tanks"), I think I had spent more time waiting for the loading time to finish than actually trying to fight and win the battle. I ended up loading a previous saved game (about three hours of play prior to where I was) and not ever returning to the Deep Roads for exactly four days until I reached level 17 and I was finally able to kick their butts.

But, thankfully, the game is very linear, you eventually get to know where the battles will occur, when (more or less) and if there will me one or more enemy mages present or not, you can prepare in advance when you get to that point (knowing the game by hearth basically), even the battles that aren't related to side-quests are entirely predictable, they spawn the exact same enemy types, numbers and weapons they use, the only thing that doesn't seem to be 100% linear is the loot you get from the corpses, and even then most of it is always the same. I've played two entire Origins so far and I am currently doing my third one, now I'm very prepared and I know what will come and how difficult it will be, but the very first Origin, in my opinion, can be a mess, the "real" fun comes when you play a second time and you know how things work much better.

 

[ayabe]

I agree with Zenoth.

That's my one real gripe with this game, you are really forced to play a certain way or else you're getting owned constantly.

For those of us who don't always play mages it can lead to some serious frustration. There are some fights that are almost impossible to win without constant CC spam.

 

[TheVrolok]

While I agree that mages are pretty uber, hasn't it really always been this way in these types of games? From what I can remember of BG/BGII/NWN mages always owned. Just the way it is. Mass damage AoE's > all.

 

[HunterDT]

me - arcane warrior/blood mage
Wynne - heal/blood mage
allister - shield/sword tank templar/champion
and Leihenia as an archer spec bard/ranger

Lol, Wynne as a blood mage? How does that work into her character? That is just against all of her rules!

 

[s44]

The one place where a lockpicker nets you major loot is

Spoiler

Arl Howe's estate

(after the treaty quests)

 

[ayabe]

While I agree that mages are pretty uber, hasn't it really always been this way in these types of games? From what I can remember of BG/BGII/NWN mages always owned. Just the way it is. Mass damage AoE's > all.

To a certain extent, I think it's just been amped up to the extreme here. I'd be willing to bet most of us are using the same party mix with small variations. That sort of defeats the choice altogether unless you just enjoy getting your butt kicked.

How many of you guys bring the Dog along, or the gimpy Rogue? Due to my main being a bow using gimp - my party is pretty much always:

Morrigan
Sten/Alistair(I like Sten but he cannot tank for shit, so it's Alistair 99% of the time)
Leliana - because she's my only lockpicker.

Any deviation from that and I'm in for a world of pain.

 

[Blintok]

Lol, Wynne as a blood mage? How does that work into her character? That is just against all of her rules!

i thot wynne was a bloodmage. When i went thru the tower with my warrior...
in the room just before the last battle...i sided with morrigan and shale to vow
to kill all the blood mages...wynne took exception to that to the point that she
said she would stop me. she stood on the stairs and proceeded to attack.
she literally lost her head on that one. because of that i did not feel bad about killing
her thinking she was on the wrong side by choosing the bloodmages.

ps
how does one make an Arcane Warrior?

 

[zerogear]

Wait until you can summon Spell might + Blizzard + Tempest, I've killed my party so many times with that...

Arcane warrior unlock
Arcane Warrior is in the werewolf ruins, just go in the room and hit Tab to bring up intractable stuff.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I think you guys have it backwards when it comes to mages and DA. Having a mage (or two!) in your party is a fantastic idea for any group based RPG, and I find it interesting that this is a matter that merits discussion at all. Is there a similar RPG out there that doesn't require crowd control or healing? Most require multiple mages for harder difficulty settings.

- Any D&D based game pretty much needs both a cleric or favored soul and an arcane of some sort in your party for CC/Buffs (BG, DDO, NWN).

- The staple MMO party includes a tank, healer and a mage for either CC or DD.

- There are eight different types of mages in the FF series and I can't think of a situation where you wouldn't want two.

- KOTOR needed crowd control on difficult fights and I'd wager most gamers brought both Bastila and Jolee if they were playing a guardian.

If anything, the ability to blend healing and crowd control into the same character makes Dragon Age more flexible than some of the other games. Rather than bringing a healer and an arcane, you can bring one person who can do both (or two people who can do both).

It's also my only real complain in this game, it's not "encouraging" you to use mage(s) in your team, it's forcing you to do so if you don't want frustrating outcomes.

While I respect your personal preference, bringing a character that can heal and engage in crowd control is excellent strategy and I don't see the problem with a game "forcing" you to use strategy once you switch to a higher level of difficulty. Frankly, if you could do well in a difficult encounter with just an entire group of tanks and no class strategy then I would see that as the problem.

 

[sourceninja]

Lol, Wynne as a blood mage? How does that work into her character? That is just against all of her rules!

I did that for a few reasons.

1) I'm a power hungry bastard
2) I wanted to see if she would care
3) It's funny and twisted.
4) It's useful for when I run out of mana potions. She can turn on blood magic and get a few heals, then steal health from a 'party member' that I converted to our side with blood magic and keep on healing. Although honestly, she hasn't run out of mana yet.

I really find the whole blood mage thing underdone. Why doesn't allister, wynne, or even the templars/mages care when I openly use blood magic in front of them. You would think fighting a duel in the streets of the largest city of land using blood magic would cause some pause, but nope. I wanted a downside to blood magic. Instead all I got was upsides.

I think mages should be overly powerful. Magic is a rare powerful thing. The downsides are the inability to use lots of magic and take a beating at the same time. Obviously the key to beating mages with warriors lies in the proper use of stuns and other abilities to prevent the mage from using spells, and of course targeting the mages first.

 

[Red Storm]

while i respect your personal preference, bringing a character that can heal and engage in crowd control is excellent strategy and i don't see the problem with a game "forcing" you to use strategy once you switch to a higher level of difficulty. Frankly, if you could do well in a difficult encounter with just an entire group of tanks and no class strategy then i would see that as the problem.

qft.

 

[Alienwho]

My party is me(mage), morrigan/wynn/alistar. I struggled at first but as soon as I built up some spells I never have a problem with any fights any longer (playing on normal). Usually in the big fights i'll replay them 2 or 3 times to see if I can kill everybody without sending alistar in. I usually simultaneously do the following:
Have wynn throw an earthquake
morrigan blizzard.
I'll do the blood mage blood boil or whatever it is.
Then I will immediately have morigan do the lightning storm, Have wynn hit the group with affliction hex, and i'll throw out the two corpse explosion bombs.
Then I'll just sit back and wait for the fireworks to start.

This playthrough I'm siding with morrigan and alistar. Next time I play (which will probably be a year from now) i'll do the opposite choices, hate on alistar and morrigan, and either do an arcane warrior, or maybe a rogue or warrior.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I'm playing on hard with a party of

me - arcane warrior/blood mage
Wynne - heal/blood mage
allister - shield/sword tank templar/champion
and Leihenia as an archer spec bard/ranger

Basically I keep Leihenia's bear pet up all the time to help protect her and Wynne. Then Allister just runs in and pisses everything off. I use my CC spells to lock down as many targets as possible, then I just hit the arcane warrior talents and smack shit with my sword. I never control wynne. She is just a heal bot with rules setup to use regen at 75%, heal at 50%, cast defensive spells on targets getting arrows shot at them, cast offensive spells on me and allister, and turn things to stone/stone fist anything that physically attacks her. Lately I've added having her cast wards on allister to help with CC.

I almost never have to take over any other characters but mine. I just hit crushing prison, then mass paralyze, sometimes force shield/crushing prison, and if that doesn't lock everyone down, then I hit blood magic, shoot off a mind control from that line then boil everyone's blood.

I've been playing on hard and I find the game a little too easy.

That's because you have two mages in your group.

Mages are overpowered imo. Wynne is far more useful than my main character (champion/beserker) because she has area effect damage (fireball) and mass healing (heal, group heal, cleansing aura etc) as well as other useful spells and unlike the old D&D mages she can just spam away and also take a few hits as well.

 

[sourceninja]

I don't use any AOE damage spells because I find them too hard to get off before the bad guys are in the melee with Allister. My wife is playing on easy, and she just casts AOE spells with no effect on her party. AOE spells on hard can really hurt my tank.

 

[ayabe]

Well I guess I'm going to have to get creative with my next play through.

I want the Dog as my tank, the gimp rogue when he's available and NO Morrigan or Wynne. If the game cannot be played this way, then it's not balanced.

Seems like everyone is playing the same party more or less, because you're forced to by the mechanics.

 

[Scouzer]

I find it quite difficult. Every fight is definitely a struggle and I have to reload often. My group is Me (warrior), Leliana, Wynne and Morrigan. I'm only playing on Normal. My guys are all Level 9 and I had to leave Redcliffe Castle--got my ass kicked in the first few rooms.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I want the Dog as my tank, the gimp rogue when he's available and NO Morrigan or Wynne. If the game cannot be played this way, then it's not balanced.

Do you really think "balance" means being able to randomly assemble any four members into a group with no strategy at all? That's certainly not what it means to most people who discuss class balance. It's very workable to assemble a group that can succeed on hard difficulty around any of the characters provided you are strategic about who you group them with, but you shouldn't be able to take four random characters and do as well as a carefully planned group.

Seems like everyone is playing the same party more or less, because you're forced to by the mechanics.

Consider that Morrigan and Wynne are found in most parties because they are the only mages and balanced groups do include a mage or two, especially since mages double as healers in this game. The real complaint here is that Bioware spent a certain amount of development time on other content that could have gone towards adding several more overlapping mage party members to the game to give you the feeling of greater party diversity.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I find it quite difficult. Every fight is definitely a struggle and I have to reload often. My group is Me (warrior), Leliana, Wynne and Morrigan. I'm only playing on Normal. My guys are all Level 9 and I had to leave Redcliffe Castle--got my ass kicked in the first few rooms.

That's a very workable group but you'll want to make sure that your main character can keep the attention of the enemies off the squishier members of your party while soaking up a large amount of damage. Otherwise (say your main character is more about DPS than tanking) I suggest swapping out Leliana for Alistair and letting Alistair tank.

Having a single tank means there's less healing needed (tank gets hit for less than your mage does) and you can put your efforts into getting one really good set of armor for the tank and not worry much about the rest of the gear.

I don't use any AOE damage spells because I find them too hard to get off before the bad guys are in the melee with Allister. My wife is playing on easy, and she just casts AOE spells with no effect on her party. AOE spells on hard can really hurt my tank.

Look into Shield Wall and Shield Expertise skills for your tank. Together they give your tank immunity to knockdown as well as a bunch of defense that lets you drop fireballs right on his head without bothering him too much provided you've gotten some decent armor for him.

 

[Liet]

In a role-playing game with as much depth as this, it's ludicrous that I HAVE to play with at least one mage in the group. What if my character is a mysogenist?

ayabe's right, I should be able to put any four characters together, and perhaps suffer some penalties, but not double or triple the difficulty of the game as it is now.

 

[ZzZGuy]

I don't use any AOE damage spells because I find them too hard to get off before the bad guys are in the melee with Allister. My wife is playing on easy, and she just casts AOE spells with no effect on her party. AOE spells on hard can really hurt my tank.

Easy - FF (Friendly Fire) does 0% damage.
Normal - FF does 50% damage.
Hard - FF does 100% damage.
Nightmare - FF does 100% damage (yes, 100%).

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/difficulty

On normal, I put cold resists on my tank(s) and drop Blizzard (AOE freeze spell) on their heads. When everything is frozen (might need the Hex AOE) I can either let my guys finish off what is left or pull them out and drop Tempest (AOE lightning spell) on top of the blizzard one, and if that fails Chain lighting.

If your caster is pulling agro, use Taunt on your tank to draw them off or disable the attacker (eg, Horror) while your cast the AOE's then let your mage lay waste to the foolish mortal that dared pick on your squishy.

And remember, the definition of insanity is to try the same thing twice expecting different results.

 

[ZzZGuy]

In a role-playing game with as much depth as this, it's ludicrous that I HAVE to play with at least one mage in the group. What if my character is a mysogenist?

ayabe's right, I should be able to put any four characters together, and perhaps suffer some penalties, but not double or triple the difficulty of the game as it is now.

With a lock picking rouge, you should be able to make enough cash to keep yourself well stocked with pots. Most items I buy I don't need, and I don't need 3 extra sets of massive armor not including what I have on characters I don't use, I don't need to have a weapon for the undead/dragons/darkspawn/one I just happen to like. So as painful as it is to spend most your money on pots, you can get through the game using them as long as you tighten your purse.

-EDIT- Also note that characters you don't take with you DO level along side you, so someone you've ignored half the game you can use the same as the one that has be beside you right from the start.

 

[coloumb]

I know this has probably been addressed in a zillion other threads, but wanted to wait to say anything until I have had a good long chance to play the game.

Overall, a decent game and enjoyable, but do you find that some of the battles just seem ridiculously difficult?

I enjoy a challenge, the planning, tactics, etc., but come on...when one or two hits take you out (even the tank characters), what is the point? Sure, you can load up on armour and buffs, but that drains the stamina/mana ridiculously low. Seems that some of the groups of enemies have "super buff and slash abilities" that never end.

The only difficult battle I've encountered so far is one which required to battle against a horde of mobs during a mass attack [I don't want to give away any hints - but it was before Wynne joined].

After that annoying battle - the remaining battles have been a piece of cake [once Wynne joined the group - I replaced Morrigan with her].

As with others - the biggest success so far seems to be with 1 tank and 3 ranged/support - much easier to just heal one character than 2 [ie: tank and melee dps]:

Alistair - tank
Myself - dps[fire ball + aoe lightning]/cc's/weapon buffs/single target healing/arcane,spell shields mage
Wynne - uberhealbot/buffs/earthquake
Leliana - Ranged / scout [traps] / lock pick / bard buffs - It bugs me if I don't pick every lock [I'm angry I can't go back and pick all those locks in first couple of areas].

I haven't picked up any specializations for myself or Leliana - I should probably do that soon as I'm already up to level 11/12. The ranger/bear that someone else mentioned would be a huge plus - as well as turning my mage into an arcane blood mage sounds frikken awesome.

on a final note - I would highly suggest getting the guide for this game - there's a lot of good information inside which can help you be more successful.

 

[ayabe]

I guess I just do not agree that there is no happy medium between having a carefully planned party and just throwing random chars together. What's the point of even having other characters or creating back stories for them if there's very little chance people will be able to use them. It's like presenting the illusion of choice when there really isn't one --

"Sure, you can use Sten and your war pup - but hope your main is a mage and has spells X,Y,Z or else -make your time."

Anyways, if I have to turn it down to easy to get a chance to play with these others chars then I'll take it as a challenge and keep plugging along.

 

[JoshGuru7]

In a role-playing game with as much depth as this, it's ludicrous that I HAVE to play with at least one mage in the group. What if my character is a mysogenist?

You don't need to bring a mage on easy mode but it would be ludicrous if you didn't need a mage on a harder setting. Let's say a mage killed your cat when you were young and I had a dog that died when it ran out of .44 calibre ammo. Regardless of our personal feelings on the subject, developers are still going to put healing and crowd control into RPGs for the same reason they put in ammo limits. It's a layer of added complexity that makes the end product more fun for most.

I don't think you guys have carefully thought about what it would mean for the game not to need crowd control or healing on harder difficulty settings.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Yeah making Leliana a ranger at level 14 does make the game a bit easier. Having a wolf with 250 odd hit points to soak up some hits in a mob fight is really helpful. Apparently the bear is even better.