Is it different enough to be worth another playthrough (changing approach to the game)

I decided to play Jade Empire first, but it's likely I'll revisit origins at some point. And I'll try to figure out tactics on my own. Make a meta game out of it!



DAII tactics are more advanced than origins? I didn't know, as I micromanaged my way throughout the entires series. Maybe DAII will deserve a revisit as well (yeah, I'm one of those that actually likes DAII).



Yeah, I'd probably get my ass kicked if I went straight to NM.



Never bothered me (micromanaging fiend that I am), but I can see how it would be offputting for someone who focused on refining team actions.



Yeah, to each their own. As I said, that heavy micromanaging approach was, for me, very satisfying (landing several combos with a precision no amount of tactical tinkering could achieve), and it also differentiated the game from action-heavy ones.

But sure, to each their own.



When I moved from normal to NM, the game "refreshed" and I squeezed 3 new playthroughs from it. Perhaps this will do the same? Time will tell!

Anyway, thanks for the insight!

Ok, finished Jade Empire yesterday (didn't really like it, but that is a topic for a different thread), and begun a new DAO to try to use tactics, and play a more action-oriented playthrough.

As I said, I want to figure out the tactics mostly on my own, but right out of the bat, I am getting some trouble.

I started the human noble origin, S&B (sucks that a starting talent comes in S&B, I wanted a dual handed weapon; I'll have to respec later and probably review any tactics I make until that point).

Now, my classic opening for the fights is having the warrior/tank run ahead and taunt the foes. What is the best way to achieve this through the tactical menu?

I'm thinking I have to set it to attack first enemy in sight (that would be in the second tactical slot, the first would be using a health potion if 20% or below in self-health), than setting self to taunt if surrounded by 2 or more enemies.

Here's my question: what's to stop that AI from wasting the taunt in 2 foes is the pathing makes it contact two ahead of others from a larger group? I thought of conditioning the taunt to three or more foes, but in those cases, my tank would fail do taunt pairs of enemies, leaving rogues and mages open...

Is there something here I'm not seeing? Thanks in advance...

Regards .

First what is important: one forum member, who knows this game very well, told about battle fix mod and it includes warrior talents as well. I have that mod, maybe you as well? (Dain's fix from nexus). Otherwise there are bugs everywhere in the game.

Will share my experience here, maybe others will do the same.

Some details would have been nice to have (what part of the game, the team), but about tank in general and it should be clear what to do step by step (as you do not have everything in the beginning).

One thing though: sometimes some things might not work with some enemies, after they do; there are bugs and glitches anyway - usually it is clear after several encounters that your tactics is set right just was unlucky so to say (sometimes very unlucky).


Example with my 2h GW, Alistair - tank, Zevran - rogue, Wynne - mage (works the same way for my other warriors and rogues and mages).

Tank's job is to draw attention by using some sustained talents like Shield Wall, Threaten, at least hit enemies (doing damage would be better but not always possible for the tank).

Alistair should be surrounded by enemies - that is his only job. And taunt enemies if they want to kill your party. And any of your team member can draw attention.
So I use the following for Alistair:
Ally is attacked by melee or ranged attack - use taunt
OR if I as 2h (e.g.) can protect myself at least somehow (use pommel strike e.g. or as a rogue use stealth or some talent) Alistair is focused on my rogue and mage/only mage (depends)
Wynne/Morrigan/Zevran/Leliana is attacked by melee or ranged attack - use taunt.

In such cases my tank does not use STA for no good reason as it is not endless. There is one reason - my rogues and mages are in danger.

And these two sets work in my PTs all the time (wrote about glitches etc etc - another question).

And since my tank is deep in enemies Wynne is mostly focused on him (that is her only job, and later can do damage with some Elites e.g.).

Taunt as everything else has cooldown, so if situation is as set in tactics for Alistair, he will use  Taunt if he has STA and Taunt is not on CD.

As for health pots - it is just as for everyone else. E.g. health less 25/50% - use health pot.

Taunt has range, yes, so it might work for one groupe or another, can work for one enemy and leave others + glitches.

But in general those two sets I always use and can't complain at all.


If there are any clarification questions about my own experience here or anything else - will gladly answer.

Hope the post was helpful.


edited



fredlc , there is nothing wrong with it. As understand it is the beginning of the game and there are always difficulties during that period as you have no talents, no nice armor, nice trinkets. Deaths are expected. Moreover it is better to have a balanced team doing their jobs. Thus just wait a bit to have several level-ups.

Yeah, I looked for MODs and installed Dains’s fix, but also another mod to fix the tactics (have looked the features of the mod cursorily and didn’t see it already fixed that specific game feature). So I might have screwed it up… though I think probably not, because it is in the override folder after all and will probably prevail…

Ah, the very beginning; the Korkary Wilds, looking for darkspawn blood. Havent even met Morrigan yet. Thus the four warriors (actually, 3 warriors and a dual handed rogue, now that I think of it) formation. I also have on the mod that turns DOG into a summon.

Dully noted.

Ok, a quick summary of my preferred tactics as I used to play, micromanaging, and that I intend to emulate with the tactics menu, if at all possible:

I always use only one warrior as the tank, one rogue as damage dealer, and two mages as support/crowd control. I play nightmare difficulty, FF on (don’t even remember if you can turn it off in Origins)

The tank, historically, was a S&B, but in my last play through I perfected using the dual handed warrior for that role, because the marginally decreased survivability is fully compensated by the increased team damage output, that ends fights faster, bringing three main advantages: less possibility of mana fatigue (as it ends faster, the mages never get depleted; in endgame is almost like mana does not exist and cooldown is your only limit), an overall faster game experience (cut over 30 hours in a full run i did using a traditional tank), and lowered probability of aggro being stolen from the warrior, diminishing the need to taunt (really shines in awakening, with the expanded talent pool for the warrior that allows him to generate a lot of threat early in the encounter, with my mages still fulfilling their support tasks; its almost like a free taunt at that stage).

The tank always opens my encounters running ahead taunting the enemies; my support would then apply glyph of warding and might defense to the warrior, than than might offense to both the warrior and the rogue.

From that, the support go on rotation, replenishing those spells, applying the force field to paralyze my tank after a taunt so they can apply "area of effect" attacks on enemies as the tank becomes invulnerable, and the rogue can waste away opposition with whatever tools available to his class (usually I have an archer, but nothing against dual wielders).

So, as I chose the role of tank for the warden (being a reset of my experience, I decided to emulate the first run I ever played, except I’ll respec to dual handed ASAP), what I want is to achieve the tank running ahead for a taunt, and the mages promptly supporting in turns, with glyphs and might defense, than going to rotation to buff attack, debuff foes and use the force field when those spells are in cooldown, opening for AoE attacks. After that, Lots of wiggle room on what active talents the rogue will employ…

Can I automate this, such specific sequence of actions, with the tactical menu? Or if not maybe I should review this sequence of actions to something achievable...

To be honest, as I’m used to nightmare and I’m playing normal, its being actually very easy so far. No deaths at all, but the actual problem is that I’m not seeing the party members responding as I wanted.

For example, I set intrepid (my dog) to run for a head butt when an ally is being attacked by a ranged foe, and growl to apply a defense debuff at close range. Those work fine so far.

But I set it to howl when surrounded by 3 or more foes to apply the fear debuff. That he never does, because apparently the foes give higher priority to human teammembers, so the dog is never “surrounded”, even when he runs into the fray. I don’t know if being close to three enemies should count as “surrounded”, or if you really need to have someone flanking.

I’m thinking of changing the criteria to when an ally is surrounded. I didn’t because I don’t know how to set that if such criteria is met, he has to close the distance to the surrounded ally before the talent is used, so he wont immediately howl and waste the action. Is running to the range of the talent an automatic response?

Another thing, I saw options to run toward an enemy, but not to run away from him; (for example, I can apply “dirty fight” for my rogue when an enemy is very close, but didn’t see how to instruct him to run away after that. Should I assume that if he had a bow equipped, instead of dual daggers, he would automatically try to distance himself?

Too early for these tactics yet, but dully noted.

Anyway, my impressions so far (when my only active talent is “shield bash”), is that I’m barely playing an actual  game at all, and that I'm watching an automated sequence or playing one of those "idle" games, in that I get to click once ever couple of minutes, that people seen to like for some reason. Against the majority opinion, I’m finding having the tactics active… boring, compared to my need to interfere in everything, like I used to do before. I’m positive that this is just bias, born of familiarity with the other play style I always employed, but... there it is. I’m thinking maybe I should use a "combined arms" approach (I did it in my last play through of inquisition, allowing my teammates only health/mana replenishing and self defense actions, but keeping control of all the offensive initiative and interplay between characters to myself).

This approach would also simplify the tactics I have to implement tremendously. However, as I said, in this particular moment, my game is not “Dragon Age Origins”; my game is “create a functional set of tactics”. So I’ll save that approach for later, if the fully automated approach fails to endear me...

All right, a few things:

I ended up reverting to my common playstyle and rising back to NM, not because I didn't want to experiment, but because i'm doing something wrong I cant figure out. I marked the first tactic to be "use moist potent health potion avaiable when healthy is equal or below 20%, but my characters were using them like crazy.

Than I took a closer lot at the tactical menu, and it actually says "health >= 20%"; above or equal, than. And it really means that, because on the first scratch my guys would use it, and they were draining like crazy. WT Heck? Am I doing something wrong here? with that setting, I cant figure out how to mark a low threshold for automated health potion usage...

So parts were made unnecessarily more difficult because I lacked my potions when I needed them.

Another thing...

Do you guys know if Dain's fix make the game easier? Here's what I mean:

In my first Playthrough on NM, I was a dual dagger rogue, and in my first real quest, I choose the Circle of Magi, and I ended up giving up because the fade was too hard (hadn't had enough interrupts to keep enemies at bay as I was without companions). From there on, I always delayed the Circle, and always played as a mage on NM, so I was a bit more powerful and with greater options to be able to overcome it.

This time, as a S&B warrior, I decided to go early (first quest after lothering), and if too hard, simply lower the difficulty. I though that would be the case, as the warrior also have only one or two interrupts.

But, to my surprise, it's being really easy. Parts that I specifically remember struggling with I simply rolled over.

The only major difference now is that I inserted Dain's fix.

Maybe I just got better; I felt the same in my last NM playthrough of the ME trilogy, but there, it was the vanilla game on XBONE. But here there is a different factor to consider. So, is there any rebalancing on the fix, that you know of?

Regards .

yeah, I did read the mod notes now, and nowhere it says that the game is supposed to have been made easier after installation. That is totally my experience with it so far, though.

I suppose it might be a byproduct of the combined effect of the several fixes implemented, though it's hard to say if it is intentional, or even real - maybe I just got more awesome at the game .

Joking aside, that's why I was seeking another subjective opinion; to see if anybody else also had that experience with the mod.

And not to worry, nothing offensive going on whatsoever!

Regards .

Thanks.

Speaking of other changes in gameplay I noticed from my last playthrough, One of the tricks I used to do seen to have stopped working.

When I was out of heroic defenses/glyph of warding spells to biff up my tank, I used to taunt foes, and after a successful taunt, place a force field to let the foe waste away its attacks in the paralyzed but invincible character, and in the meantime, I'd recover my support cool-downs while showering the foe with regular attacks (to avoid stealing too much aggro), while chipping away it's health; maybe one or two usages of power when appropriate.

Tried it on the revenant of the circle tower, twice; and in both times, as soon as my force field was up, it would forget my tank, turn around and attack my rogue. Abandoned this tactic in the current playthrough, and thus, diminished the use of the force field power, to it's "regular" use; take a powerful foe out out of the fray for a while during my moping of the regular minions.

Again, didn't find anything in the notes denoting such behavior change; a change that, while frustrating as it took away one of my preferred tactical tools, i feel is worth and immersive as it enables to the AI an intelligent response to a problem I presented to it.

And yet another thing that isn't in the notes; my Warden is being knocked down, even with shield wall sustained engaged. I specifically remember that with this engaged (and the indomitable sustained for a dual handed warrior), direct knockdown was impossible. Didn't test indomitable yet, but shield wall seens to have been nerfed; and again, no mention in the mods notes, at least that I found...

Guess the changes are, simply, more profound than the notes let on...

Yeah, I forgot that getting shield expertise was a prerequisite. My bad. Forget about it.

As for the use of force fields, well, after one mistake, maybe it was another? However, I don't remember revenants being smarter than other enemies in previous playthroughs, though.

Actually no, this answers it:

"Damage Ward:
Removes all incoming threat when damage ward effect is applied (source of damage immunity for Forcefield and Strength of Stone). Game engine instead resets outgoing threat."

Anyways, I cant really tell, because rarely I have to rely on that strategy except against stronger foes, and this relatively early, revenants are pretty much it.

But no, it is n't a problem, it actually makes a better intelligence simulacrum. I just have to adjust my own expectations. In any case, that is the most evident behavior change that I've seen for the AI.

Anyway, yeah, perhaps I should read the game notes more carefully.

Regards .