Dragon Age Difficulty?

Dragon Age Difficulty on first runthrough?

  • Easy

    Votes: 11 12.6%

  • Normal

    Votes: 59 67.8%

  • Hard

    Votes: 13 14.9%

  • Hardest (not sure what this option is)

    Votes: 4 4.6%
  • Total voters
    87
T

Tzzird

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
5,890
I'm playing this game on "Normal" and it's pretty damn challenging. I'm 10 hours in and there have been several places where I've had to reload a save multiple times. I can't remember the last game I played that was this tough on Normal. Maybe Stalker?

Anyway, I know a lot of you are playing this game right now so I'm wondering what difficulty you guys played your first playthrough on and your experience with it.
 
I play on easy since I heard how rough it was. Most battles are indeed easy, but some of the boss battles are still challenging. Ive had to tweak tactics more than once.
 
playing it on normal and some battle are indeed challenging and some that looks look regular run of mill encounters have surprised me and I end having to control the combat a bit more to win comfortably. Right now the fight I had a hard time with was that desire demon and that templar on the top floor of the mages tower, she freaking stuns and ice my guys before they could leave the room, I think I ended up just skipping that encounter
 
playing on normal was having a hard time with some normal encounters and everything. But the trick is to micromanage as much as possible. then it's a walk in the park. maybe I should just try to alter my tactics.
 
The difficulty varies considerably based on the primary character's class and the party composition.

Mages in this game are crazy powerful. Especially a primary character mage.
 
Still going through with my dual-wielding/arching Assassin on normal. Aside from some basic 'don't just stand there' tactics, I've been micromanaging everything and most encounters work out in my favour... even if I am F9ing 1-a bunch of times. Damn Revenants... :D

I'll be moving up to Hard with my mage build next.

My buddy was commenting on how easy normal was and was giving me a run down of the spell combos he was using with his mage to wipe encounters in record times. Then I told him I didn't even have access to the spells he was talking about and he was like "Oh... well I dunno then!" heh heh. Mages are awesome in this game... as long as you get to spec them.
 
Last edited:
I'm trying it on hard. Have had to drop it down to normal a few times, but it's been a blast otherwise.

I think my next play through will be on easy because I'm enjoying the story more than the combat.
 
I've only had to reload once but it was before I figured out that disabling tactics actually improves the pause n play gameplay. It's much easier now than before w/tactics on.
 
It very much depends on your class. My first character is a tank and it was extremely difficult until I got a healer, since they give you allistair regardless. I now always take my 2 mages with me. It doesn't help that there's a lot of game to learn, also.
 
I started as a mage because I love spellcasters, on 'Normal' difficulty (PS3) I find the game relatively easy. One or two deaths now and again, but I've never had a party-wipe.

AE spells don't affect your teamates in Normal Mode on PS3, so I figure thats a big part of it. If all those AE spells I use (a LOT) were hitting my buddies, it would not be nearly as easy.
 
I had five party wipes on the Redcliff level where you have wave after wave of undead. Until I learned that when i got down to 1 person in my party left I could drag the undead up to the Knights and then just run in circles around them, regenning and not getting hit while the knights killed the baddies.

I don't think it's intentional, but DA does have enough of these quirks that it's possible to get around some of the more difficult areas.

Still a fun level of tough though
 
Direwolf20 said:
AE spells don't affect your teamates in Normal Mode on PS3, so I figure thats a big part of it. If all those AE spells I use (a LOT) were hitting my buddies, it would not be nearly as easy.
Click to expand...

Lol yeah. Heres how its been going for me on Nightmare (full team damage):
1) send in the melee
2) cast Virulent Plague (or whatever its called) on one monster, Exploding Plague on another
3) wait for everyone to blow up

Crowd control becomes really important at high difficulties. You heal for less and take more damage, so preventing any damage at all is crucial.
 
The game was challenging in enough for me on normal. The last thing I want when I am gaming is to get frustrated. I am playing through as a 2H warrior build. He does pretty good damage and makes for a decent offtank. However I am coming to a quandry. Since I am limited to 4 in a party, I need a tank, and a healer at least. Since my character isn't really a tank I need to use Sten or Alistair. Which leaves one spot I would prefer to choose a second mage but then I am screwed on any locked chests and I end up choosing a rogue.
 
Last edited:
Chombo said:
The game was challenging in enough for me on normal. The last thing I want when I am gaming is to get frustrated. I am playing through as a 2H warrior build. He does pretty good damage and makes for a decent offtank. However I am coming to a quandry. Since I am limited to 4 in a party, I need a tank, and a healer at least. Since my character isn't really a tank I need to use Sten or Alistair. Which leaves one spot I would prefer to choose a second mage but then I am screwed on any locked chests and I end up choosing a rogue.
Click to expand...

This is the exact same situation I found myself in. I really wanted to use both Morrigan and Wynne, but ended up having to ditch Morrigan in favor of a rogue.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
This is the exact same situation I found myself in. I really wanted to use both Morrigan and Wynne, but ended up having to ditch Morrigan in favor of a rogue.
Click to expand...

Can't you just bash the chest or use a spell such as knock?

(Knock is a spell in dnd that allows spellcasters to open locked objects. It was in BG.)
 
I always play on normal the first time around and im finding its challenging enough without being completely impossible for me.
 
I have that first rogue you get at the bar brawl. But whenever I try to open a chest with my main character and she says "I can do that!", it says that she has insufficient skill. Do you pretty much have to be at the 3rd lockpick skill and up to open the majority of chests in the game?
 
Tzzird said:
I have that first rogue you get at the bar brawl. But whenever I try to open a chest with my main character and she says "I can do that!", it says that she has insufficient skill. Do you pretty much have to be at the 3rd lockpick skill and up to open the majority of chests in the game?
Click to expand...

4th skill with extra cunning. Its useless anyways, most of the locked chests just turn into vendor trash.
 
I finished the game on Normal with a mage with no CC spells. I would sometimes wipe but I don't think I ever came across a battle that caused me any problems, definitely no multiple wipes.

I am now playing a rogue on Hard and find the fights easier than my first run through since I'm more used to the combat and know what to expect.
 
Monkey God said:
4th skill with extra cunning. Its useless anyways, most of the locked chests just turn into vendor trash.
Click to expand...

Yup... which is why on my 2nd playthrough I'm pretty much not going to have a rogue in my party. I never had money issues nor did I ever use anything I found in a chest.

Just wish I knew this on my first playthrough...
 
I am playing on Normal and I cannot beat the ogre after trying for a couple of hours.
 
relapse808 said:
I am playing on Normal and I cannot beat the ogre after trying for a couple of hours.
Click to expand...

Have you tried running around? Seriously, whoever the ogre is beating on (probably the mage), just have him run around in a big circle, have anybody that can do range stand in the middle and shoot, and have anybody else just run after and try and hit him. It might take a few minutes but he'll go down. And if the Ogre happens to go after somebody else? Switch to that guy and have him run around :) Pretty easy tactic when it's four on one. As long as you don't stop or get caught up on something he won't ever be able to hit you.
 
Xenos said:
Have you tried running around? Seriously, whoever the ogre is beating on (probably the mage), just have him run around in a big circle, have anybody that can do range stand in the middle and shoot, and have anybody else just run after and try and hit him. It might take a few minutes but he'll go down. And if the Ogre happens to go after somebody else? Switch to that guy and have him run around :) Pretty easy tactic when it's four on one. As long as you don't stop or get caught up on something he won't ever be able to hit you.
Click to expand...

This is what I did to beat the ogre. Felt pretty cheap. Is there any way around this at this point in the game?
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
Yup... which is why on my 2nd playthrough I'm pretty much not going to have a rogue in my party. I never had money issues nor did I ever use anything I found in a chest.

Just wish I knew this on my first playthrough...
Click to expand...

I think my next playthrough ill build a rogue as my main. (but no lockpicking skills) I had whatserfacerogue on one playthrough and specced her up with dual weps and some rogue skills and had some pretty good damage. As long as you have a tank with some aggro skills (damn WOW and all your terms!!!!) its works pretty good.
 
Played on Hard on my first runthrough. My main (a mage) didn't died once, and never even got a single injury... lol.

The ArchDemon took around 10 minutes to die. What a joke. 3 mages (me, Wynme, Morrigan) and 1 tank, Alistair.

When you can ForceField the ArchDemon non-stop while killing the critters he's summoning in like 5 seconds with both Firestorm and Blizzard on top of Earthquake on hard, you know something is wrong with Mages... Mages shouldn't be able to ForceField an Archdemon. LOL!

I'm half-way in my second runthrough, and I,m trying it on hard with only 1 mage, 2 tanks (Shield and weapon) and 1 rogue. Now I'm having fun, and even got some injuries on my main!

Mages have serious balancing issues in this game.
 
Xenos said:
Have you tried running around? Seriously, whoever the ogre is beating on (probably the mage), just have him run around in a big circle, have anybody that can do range stand in the middle and shoot, and have anybody else just run after and try and hit him. It might take a few minutes but he'll go down. And if the Ogre happens to go after somebody else? Switch to that guy and have him run around :) Pretty easy tactic when it's four on one. As long as you don't stop or get caught up on something he won't ever be able to hit you.
Click to expand...

My character as stated before is a 2H warrior. I had Alistair take all the beatings, my character and the dog stayed at the ogre's backside for better damage, hit % and the mage stood back and did his mage thing. The only hard part was making sure Alistair drank a health potion before the ogre grabbed him so that he didn't die there.
 
Tzzird said:
This is what I did to beat the ogre. Felt pretty cheap. Is there any way around this at this point in the game?
Click to expand...

I initially thought it was cheap but then I just thought about what would happen if that was real and that's how I'd also go about it :) How would you attack a bull charging down on you? Stand there and melee and hope you survive or try and dodge him while your friends fire arrows at it and hope they kill it before the bull gores you?

As far as trying another way, I guess you can let the tank get aggro before you start to DPS, provided you have a mage that knows the heal spell and a lot of potions. That was my initial plan on this run through on Hard but the Ogre chose to attack my rogue first and so I had to run for my life.
 
Tzzird said:
This is what I did to beat the ogre. Felt pretty cheap. Is there any way around this at this point in the game?
Click to expand...

I had my rogue poison his daggers and attack from behind while Alistair kept aggro and the dog kept to the side. It’s useful to keep one melee off to the Ogre’s side, instead of having two at the back, since the ogre does a knock-back kick to his rear occasionally.

During the battle I'd pause a bit more than ususal since you can catch the Ogre at the start of one of his area effect animations and move everyone out of the way. As others suggested, when he's hitting one person too hard just run them away until they lose aggro.

Also try to reserve just enough stamina/mana for each character to perform a stun. If he picks up one of your characters you can force him to drop them if you successfully land a shield bash, pummel strike, horror spell, etc...
 
I'm getting close to the finish line with my first play through. I started on Hard and haven't looked back. Sure theres been parts that I've had to reload more than a few times, but its made me better at it.

My 2nd play through I will be on Nightmare.
 
I'd say normal difficulty. I had a few wipes here and there, but for the most part it's fairly easy. (I even forgot to allocate any spells, skills, stats, etc until around the gauntlet, which I did after all the other portions of the game were complete).

The days of hard RPG's are long gone.
 
This game suffers from some seriously hard fights on the normal mode, the defence at Redcliffe comes to mind, practically everyone struggles with it, most people either resort to lame pulling tactics or running back to defend near the knights.

In fact I believe thats my only single complaint about this game, everything else is awesome.
 
Deadpool2k said:
Redcliff was easy. If you think that what hard you haven't seen anything yet.
Click to expand...

First time through the game I fought off zombies easily with 3 melee and a non healing mage. Second, time through the game I got my ass nearly handed to me and this time I had 2 mages, an archer, and tank.

So its pretty random sometimes in difficulty or in your case "that what hard".
 
Drop one of your mages for a tank. 2 tanks, archer & mage is the way i have mines setup.
 
Deadpool2k said:
Drop one of your mages for a tank. 2 tanks, archer & mage is the way i have mines setup.
Click to expand...

I don't need game play advice, I was merely using my situation as an example that the difficulty is variable depending on who you have in your group. So certain areas that were once LOLEZYMOAD on one play through can offer a challenge on the second and vice versa.
 
What do you expect? If you have one tank it's much difficult to contain the battle the difficulty doesn't change at all. Mages have to be protected as they are clearly the true force in the group. One tank will not work well as he will be surrounded and outnumbering quickly, even with 2 mages and once he dies it's pretty much over for the mages.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top