I am playing Dragon Age Origins

[Piotrovitz]

Mana Clash is AoE, for Pete's sake. Open the door, throw it in and the entire room of mages just drops dead.

It's AoE is huge as fuck - like you said, you can wipe out entire room full of mages with single cast.

I just cannot comprehend why it hasn't occurred to any of the devs that it MAY BE A DECENT IDEA to tone it the fuck down a little and maybe turn it into single target spell, or make the damage less severe. Or just make it to cause only partial mana drain and stun. Or whatever, just anything other than 'I win' button.

 

[Prime Junta]

Mana Clash is AoE, for Pete's sake. Open the door, throw it in and the entire room of mages just drops dead.

It's AoE is huge as fuck - like you said, you can wipe out entire room full of mages with single cast.

I just cannot comprehend why it hasn't occurred to any of the devs that it MAY BE A DECENT IDEA to tone it the fuck down a little and maybe turn it into single target spell, or make the damage less severe. Or just make it to cause only partial mana drain and stun. Or whatever, just anything other than 'I win' button.

Eh, well, many of the top-tier spells are like that, and also the Mana line is complete shit until that so you do have to invest a fair bit to get it. IMO the whole line should've been rejiggered, Mana Clash nerfed and the others buffed or reimplemented so they're worth taking in their own right.

Also the top-tier spells ought to be level-limited rather than Magic limited; as it is it's way too easy to get access to nuclear weapons very early in the game.

But hey, the whole game is like that. "Balance" was clearly not in the designers' dictionary.

 

[Prime Junta]

As an afterthought, I think the game is handicapped by a lack of synergies between stats, items, abilities, and spells. The spell combos are designed-in with the standard effects. There's no emergent gameplay there where you discover that a cool apparently insignificant item special synergises great with some apparently underpowered ability and then hits a category of enemies in their exact weak spot.

BG2 and to a lesser extent the other IE games had a lot of it, and Pillars 1-2 pull it off pretty well too. The DAO mechanics are shallow by comparison. So yeah Mana Clash does effectively do away with mage duels, but mage duels aren't much of a thing there anyway.

 

[bec de corbin]

They tried to add more cross class synergy in Dragon Age 2 but the game is dogshit so it didn't really help

 

[Prime Junta]

They tried to add more cross class synergy in Dragon Age 2 but the game is dogshit so it didn't really help

Yeah DA2 is tragic, really. It has some rather nice ideas but the combination of a shoestring budget and sprawling size ruins it. With three times the time and budget it could've been a worthy successor to DAO. Of course it also faceplants in all the BioWare ways but then that's par for course.

I know this is a heretical opinion in these parts but I actually find the moment-to-moment gameplay in DA2 the least bad of the series, awesome-button and all. It's just badly let down by the cookie-cutter/repeated locations and endless trash mobs, even by DA standards.

 

[bec de corbin]

DA2 is so rushed and cheap that they didn't even bother to do new minimaps for the reused areas. They'll close off a couple hallways and open up a new door but still leave all the old stuff on the map, to the point that even the most oblivious player will realize that every indoor level is the same map over and over and over. They might have been a little more successful at reusing their content if they had at least disguised it better.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Just finished the Origins for the first time. I have mixed feelings - by no means this is a good RPG, but it's relatively decent and the combat felt satisfying enough to keep me going. I can see why some part of the Codex likes it.

Is is just me, or the game is piss easy even on nightmare?

I don't consider myself a veteran or some tactical mastermind - I rarely play RPGs these days and beside IE games, the only RTwP I completed was PoE. I avoided any metagaming spoilers (where to rush for the best equipment/which skills or spells to choose etc) and just rolled with whatever I felt was right. Maybe my party was pretty optimal (DW rogue with daggers and lethality, tank Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan as casters). When Wynne got arcane warrior spec it got even easier. For Morrigan I've took blood mage spec, but I never used the associated talents even once. In fact, I think I used only mind blast/cone of cold/frost weapons/sleep/mana clash for most of the game. I also haven't noticed the HP bloat that is often mentioned alongside with nightmare difficulty. DW rogue just melts almost everything in seconds.

Is Awakening DLC any good?

Since I've completed the main story, I may give it a shot, but I'm a bit short on time so I'd like some honest opinions on whether it's worth to spend these dozen or so hours on it.

 

[bec de corbin]

Awakening is an acceptable continuation. Just don't play anything past that.

 

[vota DC]

Just finished the Origins for the first time. I have mixed feelings - by no means this is a good RPG, but it's relatively decent and the combat felt satisfying enough to keep me going. I can see why some part of the Codex likes it.

Is is just me, or the game is piss easy even on nightmare?

I don't consider myself a veteran or some tactical mastermind - I rarely play RPGs these days and beside IE games, the only RTwP I completed was PoE. I avoided any metagaming spoilers (where to rush for the best equipment/which skills or spells to choose etc) and just rolled with whatever I felt was right. Maybe my party was pretty optimal (DW rogue with daggers and lethality, tank Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan as casters). When Wynne got arcane warrior spec it got even easier. For Morrigan I've took blood mage spec, but I never used the associated talents even once. In fact, I think I used only mind blast/cone of cold/frost weapons/sleep/mana clash for most of the game. I also haven't noticed the HP bloat that is often mentioned alongside with nightmare difficulty. DW rogue just melts almost everything in seconds.

Is Awakening DLC any good?

Since I've completed the main story, I may give it a shot, but I'm a bit short on time so I'd like some honest opinions on whether it's worth to spend these dozen or so hours on it.

Try MC Warrior, Alistair developed as an archer, your dog, sten and Ogrhein (spelling???).
No mages in party can help for challenge, I used some strange flask to do area damage.

 

[Cael]

Just finished the Origins for the first time. I have mixed feelings - by no means this is a good RPG, but it's relatively decent and the combat felt satisfying enough to keep me going. I can see why some part of the Codex likes it.

Is is just me, or the game is piss easy even on nightmare?

I don't consider myself a veteran or some tactical mastermind - I rarely play RPGs these days and beside IE games, the only RTwP I completed was PoE. I avoided any metagaming spoilers (where to rush for the best equipment/which skills or spells to choose etc) and just rolled with whatever I felt was right. Maybe my party was pretty optimal (DW rogue with daggers and lethality, tank Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan as casters). When Wynne got arcane warrior spec it got even easier. For Morrigan I've took blood mage spec, but I never used the associated talents even once. In fact, I think I used only mind blast/cone of cold/frost weapons/sleep/mana clash for most of the game. I also haven't noticed the HP bloat that is often mentioned alongside with nightmare difficulty. DW rogue just melts almost everything in seconds.

Is Awakening DLC any good?

Since I've completed the main story, I may give it a shot, but I'm a bit short on time so I'd like some honest opinions on whether it's worth to spend these dozen or so hours on it.

A double helping of Haste turns any DPS spec character into face melting insanity.