Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Necros wrote:It feels like you just move through the same dungeony areas, just with different wall art, and fight the same monsters, just with different 3D models.
That's because right now there is only a single map.
I'm 99% sure they will add more stuff via DLC, though, just like in ME3.
It's fun with friends, at least. Still pissed I'm not allowed to design my own character, though, and a pretty silly/inconsistent design decision considering how you are allowed to customise your weapons and armour instead. I feel like this warrants a use of the Scumbag meme.
The one improvement over ME3's multiplayer is that now you are allowed to craft the class you actually want to play, instead of being limited to hoping it's in the random boxes you open. Oh, and personally I also like its "dungeon crawl" theme more than ME3's wave defense, but that's a matter of taste.
I think they makes the game more enjoyable...to a degree. I finished with everything bar a few mosaics done, and though they are scattered and would take ages to find, a small part of me nags about it.
I waited on all the dragons till my whole group was around level 20 or 21, then I steamrolled all of them, used their scales to make uber armor and weapons for the final battle I regretted making an uber weapon for a certain character that decided not to stick around after the end :( But if you watch the full credits you'll get a cut scene about him afterwards, setting up the DLC I guess.
Necros wrote: I waited on all the dragons till my whole group was around level 20 or 21, then I steamrolled all of them, used their scales to make uber armor and weapons for the final battle I regretted making an uber weapon for a certain character that decided not to stick around after the end :( But if you watch the full credits you'll get a cut scene about him afterwards, setting up the DLC I guess.
I kiled the Dragon in the Hinterlands on Hard as level 12/13.
I will admit it took me 1 to 2 hours to do it.
I was playing a Spirit / Electricity Mage.
My team was Cassandra (Sword/Shield), Blackwall (Double handed axe) and Sera (bow).
My first recommendation would be, put Belt of Fire Resistances on everyone. - I ended up with 3 normal belts, and 1 blue belt.
It might also help to visit the Forbidden Oasis and get your fire resistance increased. - I think I had it increased through the second door.
I equipped everyone with Regeneration Potions, except Blackwall, who had 3 Jars of Bees. - To be honest, more Regen Potions would have probably helped him.
Dragon Fight tips:
Spoiler:
The dragon is vulnerable to Cold Damage. so if you're bringing a mage alone, it might be better off having one with cold spells, however I did like my Electricity Static Charge.
You can't fight the dragon in the first area, at that point, just keep on moving (Avoid the central pillar, it can fall down and injure you). Eventually it will fly back to the BloodCliffs region, where you fight it properly.
[spoiler]
Main tips for the combat is to stay in close-ish to him and, as a mage, my main focus a lot of the time was keeping the Barrier up, preferably on top of me, Blackwall and Cassandra. Sera was often quite happy staying fartherish away. - However, she would sometimes wander into some burning ground, which was annoying.
The Revive Spell, of course, was fantastically useful for when I messed up. - I didn't have the Life Ward upgrade on it either.
Whenever the dragon takes to the air, the most important thing is to keep moving and don't run in the same direction. Not only will fireballs be coming at you, but sometimes a wall of fire as well.
Eventually, he'll fly to two smallish hills to shoot at you, while a bunch of dragonlings attack. - I think trying to kill off the dragonlings as quickly as possible helps here. - Static charge was pretty useful at that point.
Eventually, when he's down to about 15% he'll fly off to the 'Dragon Crater' at the central north point in the map. If you've got a halfway intact force at this point, you've certainly won the battle.
Needless to say, I ended the fight with 0 health and regeneration potions left with only Cassandra still on her feet.
But yeah, the key I found was BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER. Don't be afraid to use the 'Disengage' command (L on the PC), to get your squaddies to run back to you in a hairy situation to let you Barrier multiple people at once before telling them to engage the dragon again (Y on the PC). Just make sure to do it when there isn't a giant fireball heading to you.
In fact, BARRIER BARRIER BARRIER sums up my main approach to playing Hard mode on Dragon Age 3.
Necros wrote: I waited on all the dragons till my whole group was around level 20 or 21, then I steamrolled all of them, used their scales to make uber armor and weapons for the final battle I regretted making an uber weapon for a certain character that decided not to stick around after the end :( But if you watch the full credits you'll get a cut scene about him afterwards, setting up the DLC I guess.
Setting up DA4 I would reckon. That's too big a deal for just a DLC, especially everything you are warned in DA: O and DA: I of the person they kill.
Desubot wrote: Soooooooo any tips on the dargen in the hinterlands?
Im getting my butt wooped :/ (lv12 ish rogue archer)
Tanks + Mage + Archery... and you're going to need to manually control your Mage and Archer.
Stick the Archer somewhere they can get stuck behind a low wall, rock, log, whatever... some sort of obstacle to prevent them getting sucked in by the Wing Vortex. Your mage is going to need to manually cast Barrier on your tanks and him/herself when they get pulled in by the Wing Vortex. Barrier should last long enough that the vortex effect ends before it does, and thus no one takes any damage.
Then pull the mage out and resume Ranged DPS. Repeat until dragon is dead.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
It helps, but not required. I just got quick on the switch between Sera (my default Archer) and Viv (my default Mage). Sera is the active character in dragon and giant-fighting unless I need to do the Barrier trick.
Specced for Bows, Sera is freakin' deadly.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Singleplayer
Fixed case where game would incorrectly think the player has more than one race/class/gender
Fixed case where users who changed their voice off of default, would have their voice set back to default when interacting with Hawke’s chargen settings.
Increased duration that search highlights things, and added highlighted items to radar while they are highlighted.
Fixed several conversation lines which would take a very long time to advance to the next line unless they were manually skipped.
Fixed case where followers could float above the ground after extended periods of play
[PC] Fixed some hitching in conversations.
[PC] Pressing the interact key (default “F”) will take everything from containers.
[PC] Hair should be less shiny on lower quality settings. [PC] Improved push-to-talk functionality when using keyboard and mouse
[PC] Added ability to rotate character models with the mouse in UI’s that show character models
[PC] Added an option to enable / disable tactical camera on mouse wheel scroll out.
[PC] Hiding the HUD on the PC will now hide all UI elements
[PC] Fixed being able to drag abilities from a tree that was not selected onto the quickbar
[PC] Fixed being able to toggle UI state for the tactical camera on the quickbar when the tactical camera is unusable
[PC] Fixed case where clicking quickbar elements in Eyefinity would trigger attacks
[PC] fixed case where extra mouse-up events were triggering in UIs
[PC] Fixed issue where mouse-up events were missed when dragging off of UI elements and then releasing the mouse button
[PC] Fixed loading Icon not animating while Mantle creates shaders during load screens.
[PC] Fixed mouse cursor flashing while targeting AOEs
[PC] Fixed situation that could result in a hang on the start menu. [PC] Fixed situation where war table could become non-interactive until users right clicked on it.
[PC] Fixed situation which could cause mouse-look to snap to a facing rather than turning smoothly
[PC] Holding right click and pressing the camera turn buttons in tactical camera will cause the cursor to strafe in the same manner the camera behaves outside tactical camera
[PC] Made some changes that should improve Mantle performance
[PC] quickbar indicator for pause state should no longer remain highlighted when game is not paused
[PS3] Increased number of save slots to 30
[PS4] Improved conversation performance during fast install
[PS4] Increased number of save slots to 50
[360] Fixed case where movies sometimes decoded incorrectly
[360] Fixed Crash when selecting storage device when select storage device warning is present
[360] Fixed the online connection error being displayed twice when attempting to login to Origin with no Xbox live connection.
Assorted stability improvements
Fixed crash that could occur after some conversations
Certain boss creatures are now immune to Disruption Field
Creatures in rag doll will now pause when the game is paused
Fix to Spirit Blade so it longer triggers combos
Fixed a couple focus abilities to be weapon agnostic
Fixed a few DA Keep world state import reactivity checks.
Fixed a few situations that could result in there being no conversation selection indicator during conversations
Fixed an issue caused by changing characters at the same as targeting an AOE ability
Fixed Audio cutting out when using AOE abilities while radial menu is open.
Fixed being unable to finish quest “Safe Keeping” if the user places key fragments in the forger, then leaves the zone without getting the finished key.
Fixed camera shaking when making small camera adjustments during character creation
Fixed case where blizzard would pause the game when it turns off
Fixed case where controller rumble would get permanently disabled
Fixed case where Imshael could end up in a location where players could not fight him.
Fixed case where interaction text would not update in tactical camera
Fixed case where mana or stamina was incorrectly displayed on mounted character’s portraits
Fixed case where users could get stuck loading a save in a certain dragon combat area
Fixed case where users could get stuck on an infinite “Connecting to Dragon Age Servers”
Fixed Crippling Blows to have a 15% damage bonus instead of .15%
Fixed Cullen’s hair having some strange shadows during cinematics
Fixed exploit that would allow bypassing ability cool-downs in certain circumstances
Fixed exploit that would allow users to take no damage.
Fixed issue where orders to interact with trebuchets made in tactical mode were un-interruptable.
Fixed issue where user loses control of the party if he enters tactical camera at the same time as a cinematic triggers
Fixed issue which could cause potion counts to be reset due to party member changes.
Fixed issue which could result in an infinite “Connecting to Dragon Age Servers” on the main menu.
Fixed issue which could result in the Radial menu not staying open
Fixed issue which could result in the screen re-sizing UI to stop working until exiting and re-entering the screen re-sizing UI.
Fixed scripted autosave in the western approach which was made which if loaded could result in certain NPCs to not show up until after leaving the area and coming back.
Fixed situation where followers could get stuck while pathfinding to the player.
Fixed some of the collectible books being non-interactive in Skyhold
Fixed slot types on several crafted items
Fixed some item names getting cut off in stores
Fixed weapon type on several crafted weapon parts.
Ground rings scale on Dragons in Tactical Camera
Radar will be shown during radar tutorial, even if the UI is set to be hidden
Radar will show way points immediately after coming out of UIs, no longer requires player to move first.
Target lock is cleared when entering tactical mode.
Unified sort order for stat listings during item modification
Multiplayer
Fixed issue which could result in negative XP being granted in some multiplayer matches
Fixed crash that could occur while switching characters in some multiplayer menus
Cursed chests in multiplayer no longer look different from un-cursed ones
Fixed some missing information on end of match screens when servers are slow in Multiplayer.
Fixed Players losing their ability to target when dying while recovering object in multiplayer
Fixed situation where host migration after end of match would fail to show end of match details for the remaining players
Fixed issue with players being interrupted while interacting with objects in Multiplayer
Fixed issue where host can be returned to an empty lobby after quitting out of a match while in the operation failed state
Improved appearance of ledge drop-downs in multiplayer.
Fixed case which could cause keys to not drop in Multiplayer
Fixed case in Multiplayer where players could attempt to use abilities while dead.
Hair textures fixed and the hanging start menu was affecting me loads. - So a good start!
I wonder what the mantle is they're referring to though. - Some sort of renderer?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/12/09 20:44:28
I did an archer for my main, there's some pretty killer combos you can do with the assassin class tree if you do that too. There's one kill you can get that makes it where every attack you do from stealth will auto crit. That works great for full draw but even better with leaping shot. On a big target like a dragon, alls you see is big red numbers flying around when you do that. Add in a gryphon bow that shoots 3 bolts per shot, or like 20 with leaping shot, and stuff will die real quick
Seems PC had it worse than consoles. Master race my ass
Gotten into the Dwarf anyway, and getting geared and leveled up to go get the Templars and see the story from the other side of things. Already got some quests I didn't get the first time around, and had some new interaction based on a different World State, particularly with Leliana.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/12/09 23:27:52
Gotten into the Dwarf anyway, and getting geared and leveled up to go get the Templars and see the story from the other side of things. Already got some quests I didn't get the first time around, and had some new interaction based on a different World State, particularly with Leliana.
Problems are to be expected when porting over from inferior systems.
Man if i ever do a second play through, totally doing maximus douchus dwarf.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/09 23:44:24
... also, pursuing Cassandra as a romantic interest as a FemElf is hilarious. The fact that you can also string along/set up/keep on the side-lines several other possible romantic interests is cool.
My FemElf is currently building rapport with Cullen, Sera, Dorian, Cassandra and Scout Harding. I think I might stick with Scout Harding.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
My main is straight up avoiding romance of any kind. Doing the whole noble/good guy thing with him. Two hand warrior, which is kind of a letdown. I'm thinking of respeccing as sword and board.
Probably going to start a playthrough as an a-hole Tal-Vashoth Mage, and eventually as a wisecracking elf melee rogue. Or a wisecracking dwarf tank if I don't end up respeccing my main guy.
Bromsy wrote: My main is straight up avoiding romance of any kind. Doing the whole noble/good guy thing with him. Two hand warrior, which is kind of a letdown. I'm thinking of respeccing as sword and board.
Probably going to start a playthrough as an a-hole Tal-Vashoth Mage, and eventually as a wisecracking elf melee rogue. Or a wisecracking dwarf tank if I don't end up respeccing my main guy.
I wanted to romance Sera on my male Dalish rogue. Biggest. Letdown. Ever.
I think Sera is a lesbian, because romancing her as a FemElf is possible, but very challenging. Perhaps not surprisingly, she seems to very greatly appreciate displays of conscience and honesty from the Herald of Andraste.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.