Dragon Age: My One Complaint

[TPiddy]

I've just completed my second playthrough of Dragon Age, and I plan on playing two more times through, but I had a complaint about their origin system and skill trees.

The Mage has so many possibilites, with Blood Magic, Shapeshifting, Healing, and then the different schools like Entropy, Spirit, Natural, etc... yet they only have one origin story...

As a man with limited time to play Dragon Age, I can't afford to play through the mage more than once because then I miss out on other achievements and classes. Why couldn't they write an 'apostate' mage origin or something? I mean, elves get two, dwarves get two and humans get one, so that gives you 5 playthroughs to discover the 4 fighting styles (archery, sword and shield, two weapons and two-handed weapons), split between rogue and warrior, but you only get 1 origin story to discover all of the mage's considerable talents.

Do you agree that this is a bit unbalanced? have any of you gone through as a mage twice? Any other suggestions for origins they could have done? Or will do in another installment?

 

[Amnestic]

You do have two ally mage characters though, which you can basically control instead of your Hero which lets you explore a Spirit Healer/Spirit and Shapeshifter/Entropy/Elemental build (which I believe is the standard for Wynne and Morrigan respectively).

 

[Jandau]

Well, to be fair, asking for more origins is the same as asking for a longer game, since it's basically just more content. And if there's one thing DA has tons of, it's content. Sure, asking for more origins sounds great, but I'm under the impression they barely had the time to finish up what they did put in. So in the end, I generally don't approve of most bitching for more origins.

However, your point does stand, in that the mage gets more toys than any other class and it would take more than one playthrough to get them all. If you go by achievements, it's even worse! The Mage achievements require you to get all the spells in one of the four major schools, but on neither of my Mage characters did I consider that as an option since mixing and matching lines from all four schools works best. It would take at least two playthroughs to get all the mage achievements.

On the other hand, you COULD just get the Respec mod (assuming you're playing on the PC) and try out any skills that catch your fancy. And that's before you decide that Alistair would be better as a dual-wielder and respec his Stats/Talents to that...

 

[Jodah]

I have heard a couple scattered rumors that they are making an apostate origin DLC so you may be in luck.

 

[TPiddy]

I'm on the 360, and it's not that I want more content necessarily, I just felt they could have done a better job in balancing skills with stories...

As for playing as the alternate characters.... what's the point of building a hero if you won't play as them?

Is one of the achievements really getting all spells in a school? I don't think that one's on 360.... I've got most of them by now with two playthroughs, but I am setting up a dwarven dual-wielding warrior next and that should knock off most of the rest of them. I need to get to a point where I don't give a shit about what my companions think so that I can bring myself to destroy the ashes and slaughter the elves .

 

[hazabaza1]

I feel your pain. I've just made a mage, and thinking I'll go Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage, but still very unsure what spells to go for.

 

[TPiddy]

I feel your pain. I've just made a mage, and thinking I'll go Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage, but still very unsure what spells to go for.

I never got to try any of the Blood Mage stuff, but if you have the Warden's Keep DLC there are bonus skills you get in there, it's a bonus achievement too, so if you're going Blood Mage, I recommend taking that quest.

I have heard that the Sleep / Horror combo is quite good... I was mostly using Cone of Cold / Stone Fist for a shattering combo and that works well, but not on bosses. I've also heard that Walking Bomb / Virulent Walking Bomb are good... as are Grease Slick with Fireball...

 

[Shycte]

Yeah, I also missed an aposte mage....

But really it's not that big of a deal.

 

[GonzoGamer]

It would've been interesting to have an origin for a mage that isn't from the tower but it isn't my biggest complaint.

My complaint would have to be with the soundtrack. The music isn't very good (even for generic music - too intrusive/loud at times and you got battle music playing long after said battle is over) and there's so much dialogue I thought I was watching Charlie Rose at times.

Also (and this isn't really a complaint as I'm sure there are many who prefer it this way), I usually prefer my RPGs to have a bit more of an open world. Even with it's repetitive landscapes, I found Oblivion to be much more immersive.

Still, if they added the custom soundtrack option for the ps3 version I probably would've been much happier with the title. I guess I should just be happy it ended up on the ps3 at all.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I wouldn't care if the Mages Origin story was not so boring. It felt incredibly dull, especially when compared to the Human Noble Origin story. Sure that wasn't as unique or interesting, but it wasn't as long and there was far more combat. It was fun, while the Mage Origin story felt like a chore.

 

[Chicago Ted]

I have heard a couple scattered rumors that they are making an apostate origin DLC so you may be in luck.

Where did you get this information?

 

[Kastillo]

Having played through the game 4 (or five i think) times 3 of them on mage I can say that the game could have used more origins for mage and for humans. As an elf you can pick between two (three if you count mage) stories a dwarf you can pick between two. As a human you can only be noble...or a mage but mages seem like a group of there own so Im not sure i would count that.
While it does make replaying kind of annoying if you always seem to make the same kind of character you can always just save right after you leave and play from there.

 

[ae86gamer]

I haven't played through the story as a Mage. The origin story is really boring.

I only did it because it gave me an achievement. >_>

 

[mikecoulter]

I don't really take all that much notice to these things.

 

[hazabaza1]

I feel your pain. I've just made a mage, and thinking I'll go Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage, but still very unsure what spells to go for.

I never got to try any of the Blood Mage stuff, but if you have the Warden's Keep DLC there are bonus skills you get in there, it's a bonus achievement too, so if you're going Blood Mage, I recommend taking that quest.

I have heard that the Sleep / Horror combo is quite good... I was mostly using Cone of Cold / Stone Fist for a shattering combo and that works well, but not on bosses. I've also heard that Walking Bomb / Virulent Walking Bomb are good... as are Grease Slick with Fireball...

Yeah, I'll probably just get Warden's Keep along with Return to Orzamar when it comes out. Also, sorry if I'm seem a bit stupid when I ask this, but is there a way to combo spells so the characters use both with one prompt? Or is it just manual?

 

[The DSM]

A valid point.

I found mages skills to be over saturated and the first time you look at them you feel over whelemed by about 6 types of magic of spell and each having 3-4 trees.

And then The specs dont help either..

Edit: 700th post is 700th

 

[TPiddy]

Yeah, I'll probably just get Warden's Keep along with Return to Orzamar when it comes out. Also, sorry if I'm seem a bit stupid when I ask this, but is there a way to combo spells so the characters use both with one prompt? Or is it just manual?

Not for manual control I don't think, but in the tactics you can set stuff up like that... for example...

Enemy > Clustered > Group of 3 or more: Sleep
Enemy > Status > Sleeping: Horror

That's how I got Morrigan to do the combo.... I controlled my mage so I had to do my cone of cold / stonefist manually.

 

[hazabaza1]

Not for manual control I don't think, but in the tactics you can set stuff up like that... for example...

Enemy > Clustered > Group of 3 or more: Sleep
Enemy > Status > Sleeping: Horror

That's how I got Morrigan to do the combo.... I controlled my mage so I had to do my cone of cold / stonefist manually.

Ah, thanks, I'm sure that'll come in handy. I'll remember to use it.

 

[TPiddy]

Not for manual control I don't think, but in the tactics you can set stuff up like that... for example...

Enemy > Clustered > Group of 3 or more: Sleep
Enemy > Status > Sleeping: Horror

That's how I got Morrigan to do the combo.... I controlled my mage so I had to do my cone of cold / stonefist manually.

Ah, thanks, I'm sure that'll come in handy. I'll remember to use it.

Yeah, I was reluctant to get into tactics at first but it really works well.... I'll typically use it to get my party members to drink their own health potions, enable their own buffs, and if they can't use a special ability, to attack anyone that attacks my character or attack anyone that I'm attacking... or attack the one with the lowest health .

 

[hazabaza1]

Not for manual control I don't think, but in the tactics you can set stuff up like that... for example...

Enemy > Clustered > Group of 3 or more: Sleep
Enemy > Status > Sleeping: Horror

That's how I got Morrigan to do the combo.... I controlled my mage so I had to do my cone of cold / stonefist manually.

Ah, thanks, I'm sure that'll come in handy. I'll remember to use it.

Yeah, I was reluctant to get into tactics at first but it really works well.... I'll typically use it to get my party members to drink their own health potions, enable their own buffs, and if they can't use a special ability, to attack anyone that attacks my character or attack anyone that I'm attacking... or attack the one with the lowest health .

Yeah, I generally started using tactics when I got to the Mage's tower (second place for me) I was just unsure about all these combos techniques people were using. But, thank god for tactics, making Wynne sort out the healing for the party makes everything so much more easier!