DA:O Difficulty

[Paragon Fury]

Is it just me, or is the difficulty in DA:O sort of...random?

Even on Normal, the games flits about from "Way too Easy" to "Just right" to "Break controller in fustration". Even in the same dungeon! Easily clear one room, get destroyed by the next one. Then go back to destroying everything in your path.

Most games have nice, gently increasing difficulty curve. DA:O's curve looks more like a drunken man trying to find his back home. And his house is at the top of a 30ft. hill.




Maybe its just me. Am I doing something wrong, or have others had this issue?

 

[lacktheknack]

That could be just you. I think it's perfect.

 

[TheLastCylon]

Agreed, I'm on the last boss fight and I can't beat it on casual, yet when I turned the difficulty up to "nightmare",for shits and giggles, I got farther in the fight than I normally did.

 

[Hiphophippo]

It's pretty brutal, that's true. But I like that about it. A lot of games hold your hands these days.

 

[EnzoHonda]

That's old-school Bioware for you. Fight waves of ridiculously easy Gibberlings then the next room has three Beholders. It's usually not that the fights are difficult, it's that you're fighting them the wrong way. Example, if you can't defend against Mind Flay, it doesn't matter how tough your characters are, they're done. Defend against Mind Flay, and you have an entertaining battle. Even easy. I haven't played Dragon Age, so I don't know if this applies as strictly as it did in Baldur's Gate.

 

[sumanoskae]

There were only a few fights that were really difficult, but most of them were side quests and there wasn't anything I couldn't get through by rethinking my strategy a little. So to answer your question, yes, the difficulty was uneven, but there was never a time when it was so easy I was board or so hard I was planning to commit homicide

 

[Poke_Freak]

What little I played of Dragon Age, before giving up (there's just something about Bioware games that sucks the will to play out of me), I found that the power level of ice magic is roughly 9001 steps above GOD.

Cone of Cold will instantly stop just about any enemy dead in it's tracks. Quite literally, usually, since you can just send in someone to wallop them over the head and watch even the biggest of your enemies break into little pieces like a fine and expensive crystal bowl you just launched like a clay pidgeon and then shot at with a flak cannon.


My first character was a fighter, got his ass handed to him in the first few fights after you get to the point where the storylines merge (the warcamp).
So after taking some advice from friends who have played it (and beaten it), I rerolled a mage specializing in ice magic and cruised though the fights without even remembering the quick save function because I never needed it again.

 

[Gontear]

Yes, the difficulty is deviant from the norm, and there are even times when I enter a room to a dozen melee mobs and a dozen mage and archer mobs, all with the ability to stun... my party fell faster than a rhino with a drinking problem.

What little I played of Dragon Age, before giving up (there's just something about Bioware games that sucks the will to play out of me), I found that the power level of ice magic is roughly 9001 steps above GOD.

Cone of Cold will instantly stop just about any enemy dead in it's tracks. Quite literally, usually, since you can just send in someone to wallop them over the head and watch even the biggest of your enemies break into little pieces like a fine and expensive crystal bowl you just launched like a clay pidgeon and then shot at with a flak cannon.


My first character was a fighter, got his ass handed to him in the first few fights after you get to the point where the storylines merge (the warcamp).
So after taking some advice from friends who have played it (and beaten it), I rerolled a mage specializing in ice magic and cruised though the fights without even remembering the quick save function because I never needed it again.

All magic have one possibly fatal flaw, especially if you're terribly outnumbered and your enemy is strategically positioned in a big area: it affects even your dudes. Just target carefully to avoid freezing your allies as well. Then follow up with a shattering spell, like Stonefist, to kill the enemy instantly. Funny thing that happened though, I froze the final boss and he still flew away to escape our assault, only to land still frozen. Probably a glitch but, it's not nice when a frozen enemy can escape when he wants to.

 

[Poke_Freak]

Yes, the difficulty is deviant from the norm, and there are even times when I enter a room to a dozen melee mobs and a dozen mage and archer mobs, all with the ability to stun... my party fell faster than a rhino with a drinking problem.

What little I played of Dragon Age, before giving up (there's just something about Bioware games that sucks the will to play out of me), I found that the power level of ice magic is roughly 9001 steps above GOD.

Cone of Cold will instantly stop just about any enemy dead in it's tracks. Quite literally, usually, since you can just send in someone to wallop them over the head and watch even the biggest of your enemies break into little pieces like a fine and expensive crystal bowl you just launched like a clay pidgeon and then shot at with a flak cannon.


My first character was a fighter, got his ass handed to him in the first few fights after you get to the point where the storylines merge (the warcamp).
So after taking some advice from friends who have played it (and beaten it), I rerolled a mage specializing in ice magic and cruised though the fights without even remembering the quick save function because I never needed it again.

All magic have one possibly fatal flaw, especially if you're terribly outnumbered and your enemy is strategically positioned in a big area: it affects even your dudes. Just target carefully to avoid freezing your allies as well. Then follow up with a shattering spell, like Stonefist, to kill the enemy instantly. Funny thing that happened though, I froze the final boss and he still flew away to escape our assault, only to land still frozen. Probably a glitch but, it's not nice when a frozen enemy can escape when he wants to.

Pause, aim spell, unpause. Problem solved.
Yeah, that flaw is about as bad as the ones you can find on a generic fangirl fanfiction self insert character. >_>