Morning Discussion
The UDK is extra exciting to me. Not only is the free release of such a prolific current engine staggering, it's surely more appealing to the lovely modding community. Standalone releases are an obvious benefit and will no doubt help them find audiences, but with access to the complete framework I expect them to produce delicious fruit.
Of course, the UDK could be used for almost anything by almost anyone. We're certain to see some weird and wonderful creations from amateurs and veterans alike.
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Duelist is a melee specialization that has nothing specifically to do with dual wielding. The talent tree for using two weapons at once only refers to dual-weapons.
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Duelist
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dual_Weapon_Talents
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Not really true.. that's the "description" but the skills are all focused on crit strike damage and backstab damage. See here: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Assassin
You can do two specializations, so I might pick up Duelist as my second one, but the Assassin skills seem far superior to me.
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You get a point to pick a specialization at levels 7 and 14, but you have to unlock the desired specialization by finding a teacher or manual (some party members will teach you if they like you enough). All unlocked specializations remain unlocked across characters; if you make Spirit Healer available on this run, you could start a new mage and be take Spirit Healer immediately upon hitting level 7.
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So far I haven't found it that hard either, but I can see how it could be if you're not playing carefully. For one, your NPCs tend to run to the closest enemy they see by default which is a fairly bad idea a lot of the time. So you kinda have to battle the default game behavior which is not intuitive.
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Difficulty can be subject to your party composition. I did the Red Cliffe night attack with my Human Sword and Board Spec Warrior, Allister, Lelianna, and Morrigan. Except Morrigan had no heals yet. After 3 attempts, I BARELY scraped by on NORMAL, using every health pot and healing herb we had, and the only person left standing was my Warrior.
Inversely, talking to my Brother over steam who is playing a Mage with decent healing abilities skated right through.
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yeah, it was nice to have a computer doing the D&D rules/math/dice rolls etc and seeing how neat it works. i find that when you're playing pen and paper there are always modifiers that are getting forgotten and stuff like that.
so far i'm liking DA:O's approach (particularly the magic system), but one downside is that it's less transparent. if you turned on all the messages in BG2 you could see how everything worked mathematically.
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Also, and this is just a little clarification on something Kentor just glossed over, but the fully voiced banter between party members is incredible and varied... Get a couple party members together who don't get along well and prepare to laugh your ass off as you wander around town while they argue and mock each other.
Another thing about party members.. It seems like in games like this in the past, only the stuff your character says makes a difference. If one of your party members has an in with a group or person you're trying to persuade, it doesn't help you because you're on your own as party members fade into the background during dialog. Not here! Plan ahead and bring the people who need to be part of the conversation from a roleplaying perspective and you will be richly rewarded as they do the talking for you and open doors that might otherwise be closed. The lack of a system like that has always been a source of frustration for me in RPGs.
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setting up an ambush at a doorway seems to be the best tactical scenario that's worked very well so far.
I've got 3 melee and 1 mage.
1 melee pulls them to the doorway (clumped)
mage casts flaming weapon (to buff melee guys)
mage casts flame blast when enemies are stuffed in the doorway.
3 Melee mop up
(you can switch one of them out for an archer if you want) -
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i had better luck using a rogue to pull 1 or 2 enemies at a time from a group (using a bow) than I did wading in and fighting them all at once. I was using MMO-style pull tactics, shoot and then run back to my party. sometimes one or two would run away, or i would pull an archer and then if i charged in the rest of the group of mobs would be pulled, but once i figured out how to range those down quickly I started having a bit more success.
there really is almost no way to handle a group of 6--8 enemies with your little party without getting gibbed.
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