Can you solo?
Can you solo?
Or are you required to bring certain NPC's along with you? I'm just curious.
[INDENT]'..tolerance when fog rolls in clouds unfold your selfless wings feathers that float from arabesque pillows I sold to be consumed by the snow white cold if only the plaster could hold withstand the flam[url="http://bit.ly/foT0XQ"]e[/url] then this fountain torch would know no shame and be outstripped only by the sun that burns with the glory and honor of your..'[/INDENT]
In general you can build your "group" however you want. This obviously includes playing alone. Up to Lothering you have little choice as to who is in your party, but after that there are only a few places in the game where you are required to bring a certain NPC with you ().
Spoiler
like Alistair to the landsmeet
Interesting. So, does that affect exp distribution also? As in, more xp devided over less people?
[INDENT]'..tolerance when fog rolls in clouds unfold your selfless wings feathers that float from arabesque pillows I sold to be consumed by the snow white cold if only the plaster could hold withstand the flam[url="http://bit.ly/foT0XQ"]e[/url] then this fountain torch would know no shame and be outstripped only by the sun that burns with the glory and honor of your..'[/INDENT]
-
Crenshinibon
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:35 pm
- Contact:
No, this does not effect experience distribution. The experience is not shared between party members like is in Baldur's Gate, so by soloing, you don't level up any faster.
If anything, the way the experience system works is similar to that of Mass Effect where are characters gain experience equally, regardless of whether or not you solo or who you bring with you.
If anything, the way the experience system works is similar to that of Mass Effect where are characters gain experience equally, regardless of whether or not you solo or who you bring with you.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
Ah, that's a shame. I like doing things the hard way, but it has to be offset by a bigger experience reward. That's not powergaming, is it? That's just being power hungry.
[INDENT]'..tolerance when fog rolls in clouds unfold your selfless wings feathers that float from arabesque pillows I sold to be consumed by the snow white cold if only the plaster could hold withstand the flam[url="http://bit.ly/foT0XQ"]e[/url] then this fountain torch would know no shame and be outstripped only by the sun that burns with the glory and honor of your..'[/INDENT]
-
Crenshinibon
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:35 pm
- Contact:
Well, in Baldur's Gate soloing was easy because you level very fast due to all that experience going to you. In Dragon Age, regardless of whether you solo or take the full party to the archdemon, your character will be of the same strength, which actually makes the game harder, especially with how tactically involved it is.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
I can imagine. Well, perhaps someone will think to create a mod at some point. I imagine there are level caps involved also. It wouldn't be a Bioware game without one.
[INDENT]'..tolerance when fog rolls in clouds unfold your selfless wings feathers that float from arabesque pillows I sold to be consumed by the snow white cold if only the plaster could hold withstand the flam[url="http://bit.ly/foT0XQ"]e[/url] then this fountain torch would know no shame and be outstripped only by the sun that burns with the glory and honor of your..'[/INDENT]
This is one game where I would not advice going solo - although technical possible. If nothing else for the NPC banter 
Just on normal difficulty many fights are rather challenging. And then there's the difficult one - I shudder to think about how some of the fights and zones would be in that mode
Just on normal difficulty many fights are rather challenging. And then there's the difficult one - I shudder to think about how some of the fights and zones would be in that mode
Insert signature here.
-
Crenshinibon
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:35 pm
- Contact:
Soloing in Dragon Age is essentially finding the best ways around the monster AI, such as pulling them one by one or using hit and run tactics.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
And even then the AI isn't stupid. I've tried luring mages and the like around corners but they just don't follow!Crenshinibon wrote:Soloing in Dragon Age is essentially finding the best ways around the monster AI, such as pulling them one by one or using hit and run tactics.
Don't think you know all the answers.
-
Crenshinibon
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:35 pm
- Contact:
Yes, exactly. I usually have no problems luring spellcasters or archers away. Sometimes they do decide to run back, though, when the distance between you and the enemy is too big. If they can heal themselves, you'll have a frustrating time with them unless you can convince them to stay in close combat. It doesn't take much convincing, though.Crenshinibon wrote:In my experience they do, as long as you hide from their line of sight.
"Up with this I will not put."
-Black Books
-Black Books
-
GoldDragon
- Posts: 587
- Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:07 pm
- Contact:
No, actually it is NOT possible to solo the entire game, as there is at least one place where the full compliment of 4 is required, and another where 2 can lead to some fun.
Spoiler
The party of 4 required is one place in the Gauntlet, specifically the Bridge.
THe place where 2 can lead to some fun is Fort Drakon, and you choose not to rescue yourself. My favourite combo: Sten and the Dog.
THe place where 2 can lead to some fun is Fort Drakon, and you choose not to rescue yourself. My favourite combo: Sten and the Dog.
-- GD
-
Mister Bean
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:24 pm
- Contact:
Nonsense. For my second playthrough, I'm soloing on Nightmare difficulty, and I recommend you do the same.
You don't need to exploit the AI to solo. Sure, I avoid running in to crowds and ambushes, but I survive because of my spellbook, and my addiction to Lesser Lyrium Potions.
I'm a L10 Arcane Warrior, with plans to become a Blood Mage. Stats include 51 Magic, 19 Willpower, and not much else.
I mastered the Cold line at Level 5. It doesn't deal much damage, but it does disable crowds. Don't be afraid to stand in your own blizzard if you have to; it doesn't hurt much, and it won't freeze the caster.
You can have Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, and the Arcane Warrior specialization at L7. Surviving until L7 can be difficult, but it's doable. Once you're there, though, you no longer have to worry much about melee baddies. You're such an effective tank, you can ignore one or two of them while you deal with enemy mages, or while you take your sweet time killing them. I've also picked up Crushing Prison and Force Field, either of which can take a boss out of the fight for a while, while you work on softer targets.
Managing your gold is interesting. If an item you pick up doesn't go on your AW, sell it. Buy hundreds of Lyrium Dust and Flasks, and use the rest of your money for Tomes.
You don't need to exploit the AI to solo. Sure, I avoid running in to crowds and ambushes, but I survive because of my spellbook, and my addiction to Lesser Lyrium Potions.
I'm a L10 Arcane Warrior, with plans to become a Blood Mage. Stats include 51 Magic, 19 Willpower, and not much else.
I mastered the Cold line at Level 5. It doesn't deal much damage, but it does disable crowds. Don't be afraid to stand in your own blizzard if you have to; it doesn't hurt much, and it won't freeze the caster.
You can have Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, and the Arcane Warrior specialization at L7. Surviving until L7 can be difficult, but it's doable. Once you're there, though, you no longer have to worry much about melee baddies. You're such an effective tank, you can ignore one or two of them while you deal with enemy mages, or while you take your sweet time killing them. I've also picked up Crushing Prison and Force Field, either of which can take a boss out of the fight for a while, while you work on softer targets.
Managing your gold is interesting. If an item you pick up doesn't go on your AW, sell it. Buy hundreds of Lyrium Dust and Flasks, and use the rest of your money for Tomes.
-
GoldDragon
- Posts: 587
- Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:07 pm
- Contact:
-
Mister Bean
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:24 pm
- Contact:
Dear Mister Dragon,
Naturally I read your post. My exclamation of "Nonsense!" was more directed at those who said you should not try to solo. Yes, you are correct that there are quests where you are forced to have party members, but aside from those, you can solo, and it's worth doing if you're up for a challenge.
Naturally I read your post. My exclamation of "Nonsense!" was more directed at those who said you should not try to solo. Yes, you are correct that there are quests where you are forced to have party members, but aside from those, you can solo, and it's worth doing if you're up for a challenge.
It is definitely powergaming. I did solo a bit in Baldurs Gate, too, but I hit the maxlevel of ToB in the Underdark already. Thats why it was no fun to solo in BG, after a really hard start it soon all got super super simple.Tricky wrote:Ah, that's a shame. I like doing things the hard way, but it has to be offset by a bigger experience reward. That's not powergaming, is it? That's just being power hungry.
In DA, the challenge stays. But so far I have more than enough challenge with a full group and dont need the extra challenge of soloing.
Replying to Mr. Bean about soloing w/ arcane warrior
Mr. Bean, I agree that soloing much of Dragon Age is very doable. But I'm curious what you think about the following:
I don't know if your philosophy, like mine, however, is to never die (meaning my entire party, of 4 or 1 or however many). If so, then soloing with an arcane warrior is almost certainly not going to work.
Eventually, something like having an enemy caster magic resist your mana clash or prison will happen, and the caster will hit you with their own crushing prison. Maybe if you have shimmering shield up when that happens, you could possibly live, but since the patch 1.02 where it drops off, that seems unlikely.
Or, once enemy archers get scattershot, which auto hits and auto stuns, and they combine that with shattershot, which takes 20 off your armor score, you could run into some fights that could get you. One other potential problem is overwhelm from spiders or wolves.
Another type of example: I think that the best class combo is actually a noble dwarf warrior templar/berserker with dual wield. You have to be a templar to get 100 magic resistance. You can get incredible defense and incredible offense, with death blow to restore stamina, etc.
But as an example of the problems you run into when soloing, I went through the whole deep roads like a hot knife through butter, not needing any strategy at all, hardly, but... then I hit the corrupted spider queen, and even with 30 nature resistance, she killed me almost instantly with this crazy poison spit that auto-hits and does incredible dam fast, combined with overwhelm from her normal-level spider lackeys that also auto-works. Maybe if I'd had a greater nature balm I could have lived and won that fight.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on dying from stuff like I mentioned? Do you consider it an easy and successful solo if you have to sometimes reload from freak but very possible things that pop up and kill you like that?
Mr. Bean, I agree that soloing much of Dragon Age is very doable. But I'm curious what you think about the following:
I don't know if your philosophy, like mine, however, is to never die (meaning my entire party, of 4 or 1 or however many). If so, then soloing with an arcane warrior is almost certainly not going to work.
Eventually, something like having an enemy caster magic resist your mana clash or prison will happen, and the caster will hit you with their own crushing prison. Maybe if you have shimmering shield up when that happens, you could possibly live, but since the patch 1.02 where it drops off, that seems unlikely.
Or, once enemy archers get scattershot, which auto hits and auto stuns, and they combine that with shattershot, which takes 20 off your armor score, you could run into some fights that could get you. One other potential problem is overwhelm from spiders or wolves.
Another type of example: I think that the best class combo is actually a noble dwarf warrior templar/berserker with dual wield. You have to be a templar to get 100 magic resistance. You can get incredible defense and incredible offense, with death blow to restore stamina, etc.
But as an example of the problems you run into when soloing, I went through the whole deep roads like a hot knife through butter, not needing any strategy at all, hardly, but... then I hit the corrupted spider queen, and even with 30 nature resistance, she killed me almost instantly with this crazy poison spit that auto-hits and does incredible dam fast, combined with overwhelm from her normal-level spider lackeys that also auto-works. Maybe if I'd had a greater nature balm I could have lived and won that fight.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on dying from stuff like I mentioned? Do you consider it an easy and successful solo if you have to sometimes reload from freak but very possible things that pop up and kill you like that?
-
Crenshinibon
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:35 pm
- Contact:
I'm on my third solo right now, the fist two being a Dwarf Noble Templar/Champion (Sword and Shield) on Hard and a City Elf Templar/Reaver (Two-Handed) on Nightmare. As such, soloing is definitely possible.
By no means do you need to be a Templar to get 100% magic resistance, nor do you really need that much. For specializations (for a warrior), I'd actually rank them in the following order, in terms of usefulness:
Templar: It's definately useful as 100% magic resistance is nothing to scoff at. With this specialization, you can get the Knight Commander's Armor (40% magic resistance) right out of Lothering. However, most of your talents are essentially useless. The first ability is barely noticable, nor is it needed when spells don't harm you. Dispelling spells can be useful when wanting to remove certain debuffs or enemy protections. Mental resistance isn't needed as you're immune to the spells anyway. The last skill can serve as as a stun and knockback ability, but overall it's not that useful without significantly investing in Willpower.
Reaver: It's definitely underrated. Devour, when properly used, can save you a lot of potions and fully heal you if there are enough corpses around, which is useful in boss fights. Frightening Appearance is a godsend. From my experience, it's only resisted by golems and revenants. Through this ability, my character was able to kill ogres without taking ANY damage. Most bosses are affected by this ability. Aura of Pain isn't that useful, only in Orzamar when swarmed by Deepstalkers or during the ending sequence where the darkspawn easily die to it. On the flip side, you can get enough regeneration to fully offset the damage you take. Blood Frenzy gives you damage based on your health, though it doesn't appear on your character sheet. For every 10% you lose, you gain one damage point. Again, from my experience, you should get about five bonus damage from this ability.
Champion: This class has two main abilities: War Cry and Rally. With all four talents, your Rally gives you ten to attack and ten to defense, which is useful throughout the whole game, and War Cry debuffs all surrounding enemies with -10 to attack (which translates to ten more defense for you), but more importantly, it knocks most enemies back. This gives you some room to breath as well as a few seconds for your abilities to cool down.
Berserker: The main ability, Berserk (with four talents), gives your character a flat eight bonus damage, ten to mental resistance, five to nature resistance and a one and a half point to health regeneration. However, the cooldown is fairly long. The final talent, Final Blow, is a two edged sword. With it, you can easily do over two hundred damage, but that costs you all of your stamina, leaving you without the ability to use your talents, which could probably inflict even more damage over the course of the battle.
For race and origin, the dwarf noble has a clear advantage, having a natural 10% to resist magic and having Gorim buy all of his items at double the price. It's by no means necessary to play one when soloing, it's just that you get your equipment faster.
By no means do you need to be a Templar to get 100% magic resistance, nor do you really need that much. For specializations (for a warrior), I'd actually rank them in the following order, in terms of usefulness:
Templar: It's definately useful as 100% magic resistance is nothing to scoff at. With this specialization, you can get the Knight Commander's Armor (40% magic resistance) right out of Lothering. However, most of your talents are essentially useless. The first ability is barely noticable, nor is it needed when spells don't harm you. Dispelling spells can be useful when wanting to remove certain debuffs or enemy protections. Mental resistance isn't needed as you're immune to the spells anyway. The last skill can serve as as a stun and knockback ability, but overall it's not that useful without significantly investing in Willpower.
Reaver: It's definitely underrated. Devour, when properly used, can save you a lot of potions and fully heal you if there are enough corpses around, which is useful in boss fights. Frightening Appearance is a godsend. From my experience, it's only resisted by golems and revenants. Through this ability, my character was able to kill ogres without taking ANY damage. Most bosses are affected by this ability. Aura of Pain isn't that useful, only in Orzamar when swarmed by Deepstalkers or during the ending sequence where the darkspawn easily die to it. On the flip side, you can get enough regeneration to fully offset the damage you take. Blood Frenzy gives you damage based on your health, though it doesn't appear on your character sheet. For every 10% you lose, you gain one damage point. Again, from my experience, you should get about five bonus damage from this ability.
Champion: This class has two main abilities: War Cry and Rally. With all four talents, your Rally gives you ten to attack and ten to defense, which is useful throughout the whole game, and War Cry debuffs all surrounding enemies with -10 to attack (which translates to ten more defense for you), but more importantly, it knocks most enemies back. This gives you some room to breath as well as a few seconds for your abilities to cool down.
Berserker: The main ability, Berserk (with four talents), gives your character a flat eight bonus damage, ten to mental resistance, five to nature resistance and a one and a half point to health regeneration. However, the cooldown is fairly long. The final talent, Final Blow, is a two edged sword. With it, you can easily do over two hundred damage, but that costs you all of your stamina, leaving you without the ability to use your talents, which could probably inflict even more damage over the course of the battle.
For race and origin, the dwarf noble has a clear advantage, having a natural 10% to resist magic and having Gorim buy all of his items at double the price. It's by no means necessary to play one when soloing, it's just that you get your equipment faster.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”