Dragon Age 2 - How Do You Play It?

Let's just say the so-called tutorial the game offers is next to useless. I'm still not sure how exactly to play it. Is there a tutorial on how the battle system works?

 

I play it both tactically and like a hack n slash game. Personally i really like the changes bioware has made, although i would still hesitate to buy it.

 

Well, I meant to ask that, but also how the control system works. Like what button does what.

 

Hard to play tactically when the mouse is locked to you or a companion. To attack it's pretty much just right click and wait for your target to die. 1 to 0 is mapped to each character's abilities so if it's available to use, so push the button to do a fancy move.

 

Space is also helpful, since it's a pause button that lets you stop the action and reevalutate what's going on.

Also, if you poke around your character menus, you'll see a "tactics" menu that act as automatic actions for your characters. For example, "If Rogue is surrounded by two or more enemies, use ability Evade".

Personally I play with mouse and make a lot of use of the pause button.

 

I'm playing on hard difficulty, so yeah, that forces me to use the pause button often and manually give directions to the party.

 

+1

I play on hard and that's what I do too. Hard difficulty wasn't that hard once you get the hang of it.

This and this should give you some general tips and info about the game.

 

Battle system is my only concern with playing this game really.
Tactic system is too easy and repetitive (although not perfectly implemented with camera locked on your head) while hack n slash doesnt really work on hard — stuff will die.

 

I never get how to change targets. If my character are alright fighting, and let's say I want to have Hawke to stop attacking enemy A and cast a spell on enemy B, do I pause the game, left click on B, click on the spell, then left click on B again?

 

pause, click target, click spell, unpause.

Clicking again will override your spell command with basic attack.

Incidentally, have you looked in the so-called manual?

 

Left or right click on the first click?

 

Right click. Left-click is relatively useless in this game.

 

Left-click is used for certain range attacks, like fire ball, area attack, healing etc...
Whenever you see your cursor turns to a cross-hair icon, that's when you would left-click on your target (right-click cancels it).

 

Just purchase an Xbox360 controller with USB cable. Use 360 controller as that's how it was meant to be played.

 

On nightmare when playing as a warrior you must attack, then immediately step away using the keyboard, then attack again or whatever. That way you evade getting hit in melee. If you will wait for your target to die you might die first, depending on the target

 

So you recoment me to get this game on 360 and not the pc?

 

I don't want to be rude, but what's the fun part of playing this game? If the caracters fight by themself... What's the part where I play?

Please, I'm asking because I'm new in this type of games: don't take it wrong.

 

Do you have any recomendation about the control software for the Xbox 360 Controller in Windows 7 64?

 

Is there a place to train/loot in Act 1? What's the best way to level up?

 

I don't think there are any places for fast xp or looting.. Just do all of the quests and your party will get much stronger in no time.

I did most of the Act 1 main & side quests on Hard difficulty (except the really early ones on Normal difficulty coz I didn't have enough abilities to keep my guys alive at that time ) and for me most of the battles were quite easy with my dual wielding rogue with some speedy serious critical damage. And I'm playing with mouse & keyboard of course.

All you need are the right attributes (focus on 2 attributes depending on your class rather than spending a few points on different ones, ie. focus on strength & constitution for Warrior, magic & willpower for Mage, dexterity & cunning for Rogue), abilities and the right people for the job. (in this case always bring Anders for some good & fast healing (with rock armor & mind blast so that he don't die easily) and Aveline for tanking)

 

Disagree. One of the few things BioWare did really well is the traditional PC Mouse and Keyboard controls for this.

It's so easy to get your warrior to strife and flank mobs. Just going head to head and wailing away on a mob will get you killed very fast on hard or nightmare levels.

Also your companions get raped by assassin rogues and the mages attract the attention of elites constantly. Having a warrior mobile to dash to use pummel, or a large enough hit to stun, or if you have holy smite leveled high enough. During a large fight, my warrior never stays in one spot for more than 5 seconds. Bosses don't just sit there either. Have to get out of the AoE attacks, bosses to rotate, rush etc. Have to get out of the way for that.

 

Does anyone know if the glitch works on PC still?

 

@Audi and Pepe - Just download the latest 360 controller driver from microsoft and then plug in your 360 controller. Windows 7 will hopefully see it correctly. Sometimes you have to go into hardware and then controllers and set it manually as a microsoft controller 360.

StevenX

 

But, do you recomend any software for manually setting the function of each buttom?

Thanks!

 

Will be playing it on hard too once I get it, played Dragon Age origins and awakening on hard difficulty after playing it a bit on normal and finding it way too easy.

 

I don't own the game, but from the demo/gameplay videos, I think the gameplay is similar to ME2. You can choose to use the number keys for skills and fight without the pause option, or you can use the pause option to strategize your moves.

 

Err.... no. DA2 is not a shooter like ME2, and ME2 does not have a constant pause option (you have to keep pressed a button, space bar? I don't remember). But besides the option to 'pause' the game, that's where similarities end gameplay-wise (or more specifically: when combat happens).

 

Alright for anyone who hasn't played, don't speculate.

This game on nightmare or hard difficulty cannot be played by just left clicking and clicking a few buttons on the keyboard.

Pausing and strategy is REQUIRED. The Elites and Bosses have way too much health and mobs constantly spawn while the elites/bosses are still alive.

Dragon Age 2 has what is called cross-class combat system. You have to use this. Meaning you make a rogue use skills that disorient, mages make something brittle. The only way to bring down in nightmare with enough power from a warrior is to do this.

Whenever a warrior staggers an opponent, you have to take advantage and have a mage cast a certain spell or rogue a certain skill where the damage output can be up to 400%.

Having the tatctics just do it by itself I don't think is effective. It's more effective on nightmare to pause, rogue throw bomb, warrior crush the disoriented.

 

Lol I agree. I'm playing on normal right now and I still pause very often. Maybe sometimes I don't need to pause necessarily, but it makes the battle go by faster and more effectively without risking one of my characters dying.

 

After trying the Demo.........I won't be playing it !

 

There are good reasons to pass on this game, I won't deny. $40-60 is a lot for game but I would not base your decision on the demo though...

Sadly the demo doesn't actually tell you how the combat is at all. If you like large boss fights and strategy you have to play it on hard in the actual campaign. The Demo is not way to judge the game. The Ogre in the demo is just an elite, it's not a boss and is not difficult to take care of at all.

The Campaign you get to fight are multi stages and fun. They involve a lot of movement from all members of the party. While the bosses may be taunted by your tank, they do have secondary attacks that can kill your mages, rogues in one hit. They also spawn AoE that anyone is caught in gets destroyed. The one on one fight like something similar to DA:O when you fight Loghan is here too except here the enemy knocks you down cosntantly and in 2 crits you are dead.

Multi-Stage fights

Spoiler

High Dragon has 2 stages. Each stage is very difficult on high/nightmare. The fight lasts very long time. Range and melee attacks in different stages and have to deal with a ton of spawned mobs, even spawns a few elite mobs.
Elf Keeper - Another fun fight involving AoE attacks, melee and range attacks from the boss. Boss enrages in various stages.
Orsino - This boss has multi-stage with plenty of spawns and even transformations
Varterral - Face 2 of these if you do all the side quests. Also has AoE attacks and few stages that your tank has to deal with. Has range attack that will wipe out your companions in 1 hit.
Meredith - She has multi stages also when bringing statues and multiple mini-bosses spawning. Another very fun fight where you will be very mobile with all your party members with some dialogue scenes using in game engine (not cut scene).

There are also just some very difficult fights where you face mages that can wipe out your entire party with one spell. And have multiple elite shadow assassins who can kill your party members in one hit, drink potions to gain more health, constantly stealthing and then reappearing with backstab that takese 50% of your health at minimum.

Hopefully you can find other means to "demo" the game itself. Find a friend or watch a video of someone who is playing on hard/nightmare mode on PC.

Some impressions of easy combat are true some not, depens on how you play.

It's true even at late game on normal mode, if you have a well equipped warrior and know what you are doing, quick on your fingers and with good awareness, you can wipe the combat single handedly without pausing etc.

But, if you are on hard mode, a single elite mob can take you down, you can't go head to to head against a rock golem by yourself in hard mode for example. You need your party and with literally 12+ other mobs constantly spawning with multiple elites, your party will be decimated. Yes the tactical view which we loved from DA:O is gone and yes a lot of the combat mechanics is much faster, they made up for that by increasing the damage you take and increasing the health and number of mobs in DA2. It's just as hard if not harder sometimes than DA:O. In fact I'd say the dragon fight in DA2 is at another level of fun and difficulty vs the DA:O dragon fight.

 

With a frown on my face.

 

Finally, someone that DOESNT have the specs of a supercomputer! LOL... I noticed you're running a 9500... how does the game run? I have a 7800GTX, but not sure about the game cause the first one gave me around 25-40fps.

 

Combat has nothing to do with with me liking the demo.

I just prefer that an "RPG" game be an "RPG" game, which DA2 isn't !

Not looking for a strategy,action,bling-bling with homogenized rpg elements hybrid.

Guess I'll just wait for The Witcher 2 !

After DA2 and Mass Effect 2, I have finally lost all faith that Bioware wants to or knows how to make an RPG any longer....................too bad, they use to be the best in the business !

 

Just waiting for D3 to come out to end all this RPG-wanna-be nonsense. But I'm still going to play DA2!

 

Dragon Age games are all ridiculously easy... If you min-max your character you can always solo the games on Nightmare difficulty with some clever use of traps poisons and potions...

That said, if you play on easy its just pure hack and slash...

I usually play as a rogue main character and I constantly have to circle strafe to get behind enemies to get backstabs in while they are in their own attack animations.

 

What's that mean?

Also, if you only have 1 person in your party, does he/she get more experience per kill?

 

Nope. Experience is shared among all your party members regardless of who's present.

 

So what does "min-max your character" mean?

 

Ok, after playing it longer i actually quite like it.
I also dont understand people who complain about having hard time to earn 50 gold — it took me 5-6 large quests to accomplish it and i knew a lot of interesting stuff in the process, cant really complain that it was boring.
On a side note — yes, they do copy-paste some locations.

Here is a video featuring dragon fight on NIGHTMARE.
Seems easy but the guy plays it perfectly also have thought out skill-tree and partners, good timing on stuns to interrupt dragon combo-chains etc. Also he didnt pause which is also quite insane.
For instance it took me 3 tries to accomplish it on normal.

Obviously spoiler but fun to watch: YouTube - The Ultimate Vanguard: Mature Dragon

 

To build almost perfect your character (for a certain role) such that you exploit to the maximum its advantages. An easy example: Increasing strength to your Mage is a bad way of min-max 'ing it.

 

So basically building the character to specialize like a god in one thing and to suck/do so-so in the rest? ._.

I see... -nods-

 

Well, unless DA2 is so broken that any character can do anything (like FFXII or Oblivion) then yes, that is basically min-max.

 

That dragon is just an elite mini boss. It's not even a boss. And it's far easier to just have a tank that can't be knocked down and then just kill it quickly with companions behind it. That fight could have been done in 1/2-2/3 of the time. Also on nightmare the dragon hits you a lot harder than that, which tells me this dude probably used console cheats to add more attributions to his warrior.
- There are console cheats that give you a 180 second, or about 3 minute buff that increase any attributes you want. Which makes sense for this guy.
- Try playing on nightmare, you will see that even a normal elite hits your warrior harder than that guy is being hit by a mature dragon.

This is the actual better and more difficult fight done right without cheating. The fight is actually multi stage and it's very long and you do have to pause and play. Not like the rubbish above, I don't even know what that is.

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Well you are playing... moving the characters and strategizing on who to focus and what skills to use at any given time. In DA2, especially in hard and nightmare modes, it's also essential to move your characters to actually dodge melee and magic attacks.

After reading a few of these reviews I also have to say that I really like this game so far. The graphics are very nice on high dx9 with the 1gb High Rez textures, and it runs extremely smoothly on my 2.5 year old laptop @ 1920x1080 4x AA. Only adjustments that I deem necessary are balancing the audio (halving sound effects and music while keeping voices at max) and removing the circles under the characters. The story so far is pretty satisfying for me, seeing the events from DA Origins often intertwining with the current storyline, and seeing some old characters pop up once in a while.

 

Also some hints: Don't play Mage yourself (Anders is better), and 2H warrior is better than Rogue in DA2.

Anders is by far the best mage in the game. He's better than you. He has abilities that reduce CD on all spells by 80%. He's a constant CC machine, he can spam Petrify and Ice spells to constantly freeze and make enemies brittle.

Honestly I can't think of a reason why you shouldn't just play 2H warrior in this game. Varric has way better long range rogue skills than you can. Isabela's rogue specialization abilities make her unstoppable which you don't have access to. Her multi stab crowd decimation skill is OP. Anders again has the 80% CD passive ability.

If you just want to play the game, IMO just have a really good set of tactics for your own 2H warrior and then just go play as one of your companions if you want to play Mage/Rogue/Tank etc.

Also for damage, I found a 2H warrior with buffs is the death machine. Not rogue. A 2H warrior if you distribute attributes right with some warrior buffs, Berserker tree + Heroic buff from Mage etc, you can have a character that has 80% crit chance, 80% crit damage, around 20-30% increase in damage, 95 DPS, 100% attack. With that, your character is constantly critting, constantly stunning everything. Also 2H warrior can hit multiple enemies at the same time with every swing vs rogue which is only single character. Anyways, if you want to play a high damage, death machine, a high crit chance, high crit damage 2H warrior is by far the best I think. Plus with armor and defense you can survive most things, except bosses. With the skill where you can rush mobs, you can take out 4-5 mobs before a rogue can take out one. It's that insane.

Berserk warrior is amazing since you never have to use stamina potions except against maybe a huge boss. The stamina regeneration is awesome with berserker. Berserker has been improved a lot in DA2.

 

Here is a quick guide that will answer your question:
1. Put the difficulty to at least "hard".
2. Meet 1-2 elite mobs.
3. Smack random buttons and let your heros fight by themselves
4. Wipe hopelessly
5. Think what you could do differently there — there you go you are actually playing.

I ll give you 3 better examples of min maxing.

1. You pick up random abilities in your trees that seem to be useful. Then you engage a fight and realize that you dont have enough "energy" to use even half of it at once. = poorly built character with wasted talents.
2. You do side quests to get better gear = maxing your character's gear.
3. You pick a group of companions, but they just kill each other with aoe or die because no one can reliably tank = poorly assembled group.

Noticing such things and improving = min maxing.

i didnt play nightmare yet but so far my attempts to kill something quickly spamming mana and stamina pots end up with overagroing every freaking time -)

 

That's because your tank needs points in warmonger. You want bravery so your tank increases threat generation.

Or

You want Battle Synergy from Battlemaster that will transfer threat from your companions onto the tank. It's like a constant taunt.

 

So... What's the best build if you're playing as warrior with a 2-handed weapon?

 

I find it boring if you follow the "best" builds You'll end up finding it too easy or something and then come here and say it's easy.

I like it better to think up my own builds. Who cares if I messed it up and made the game harder, it's just more fun to try to overcome that