Dragon Age Origins on PS3

[Flying Arrow]

So last week I picked up DA:O for PS3, trading in my copy of FF13.

Here's my problem:

At a friend's house I watched him play it for a bit and was instantly sold. I grab it for the PS3 (I don't have a PC strong enough to run it) and it's absolutely excruciating. Specifically, the combat, which involves one of the clunkiest and most cumbersome interfaces I've ever encountered, is a slog. I usually have few issues getting through most fights, but tougher ones become almost unmanageable, especially when the party is overwhelmed or ambushed by darkspawn (or when I am overwhelmed or ambushed by slowdown and frame-rate drops). Although I find ways to win, none of it is enjoyable or satisfying.

Also, the sidequests and environments are slightly drab. But I doubt this is a PS3-exclusive problem for this game.

Other than that, I'm really digging the plot - specifically, the party interaction. Very enjoyable. The only problem is that when I'm hating the combat, the party interaction is all I look forward to. But, to be honest, this just isn't enough to pick up the slack.

So, anybody around here play through this on console? Am I missing something that everyone else seems to be getting? I've only just got to Denerim after the Redcliffe section, and the thought of continuing through to the very end is completely and utterly draining.

[Pheesh]

Hmm, I have it for PS3, the only problem I really ever had with it was the frame rate drops, and as soon as that happens I tend to bring up my radial menu straight away, so that I'm not being beaten to a pulp. In fact, the first thing I'll tend to do at the start of any battle is bring the radial menu up straight away and just have a look around and make sure I know what I'll be doing and what not.

Have you got your radial menu set to stay open after one click (as opposed to having to hold down the button to keep it open)? I found that was a major help for me when playing the game. Also, I played an arcane warrior, which meant that I had options from afar, and didn't have to plunge straight into the melee combat.

I think that if you stick with it, and get used to using the radial menu and your quick skill slots you'll start to get the hang of it more. I did enjoy the combat aspect of it, although there are some VERY frustrating battles to be had.

[Quindiana Jones]

I'm on the same boat as FA. I enjoyed the story and the characters, but couldn't stand the gameplay; it was horrific.

[Jings]

I have it for the 360 and haven't noticed any frame rate drops. I rather enjoyed the gameplay too, although I did have to lower the difficulty on a number of occasions because I was being wiped easily. Controlling your mage character is probably the best way to ensure victory, I've found.

[Iceglow]

Ok well sorry I can't help with the ps3 speciffic issues you seem to be having (frame rate issues, I never really experienced any problems with this on the 360 version) but I can give some general pointers on the party controls (I've tried all the different job classes but not all the sub classes within each job) and maybe 1 or 2 for the lag you seem to be having.

Firstly, your radial menu should ALWAYS be changed to "toggle" so you don't need to hold down the button and then rotate sticks and stuff, if you end up slipping it gets very fraustrating to need to do things quickly and hope for the best. Toggle means you can calmly give orders out to your warriors, make sure the mages are using the right spells first then that your archers are either out of range of melee/equipped to melee and then focus on your up close guys because they need the least looking after if you level them up with some good armour or high const stat.

Secondly, balancing your party. 1 mage, 1 rogue, 1 crowd control and a warrior is best imho though theres many possible variations, don't forget what sub jobs people are, Leilana's bard skills allow her to provide useful party bonuses and Wynne's healing is amazing at keeping you upright in tough fights. You can overcook most basic fights with 2 or 3 mages if you like but they'll be very exposed to melee attacks and you really want to avoid friendly mana drain/clearing by a templar so take Sten in these situations. Crowd control characters are those like Dog and Shale, their abilities are designed to support other characters or to herd large groups of enemies. Dog is limited in use but I've used him all the way up to the end game and he definitely can still fight it out if you get him a very expensive collar and kaddis. Shale on the other hand can demolish people and also provide a very effective wall between you and your enemies. Also for an easier fight, take direct control of either a mage with healing spells (wynne is best) or take control of an archer so that you're able to stand back and keep an eye on the overall battlefield rather than the swirling melee.

thirdly, in your options turn off persistent gore this will remove the blood splatter effects from your characters, if battle is slowing down when you're covered in blood there is a slim possibility that the gore process could be hindering you some. It's not likely to speed anything up by much however. This also makes many conversations and cut scenes make more sense after all you wouldn't go talk to the King of Ferelden covered head to toe in gore would you?

Fourthly, remember warriors using heavy or massive armour are better protected but cannot evade as many attacks as one using medium or light armour so keep the big heavy stuff for Sten, Allistair, Oghren and your main character if they're a warrior don't bother equipping any heavy armour to anyone else because they'll be slower also rogues can use dexterity instead of strength in combat so light armour with dexterity bonuses will not only help the rogue class character avoid damage but also will help you gain damage dealt.

Fifthly, the damage dealt by weapons is generally as follows: Sword, Axe, Hammer, Dagger, however damage dealt through armour is: Hammer, Axe, Dagger, Sword on occassion, speed will be off the essence and then the order becomes: Dagger, Sword, Axe, Hammer carry weapons to deal with these situations, if fighting heavily powered but lightly armoured beings such as Ogres use swords, if fighting a mixture axes can work well but if it's a whole army of heavily armoured Dwarves or Hurlocks then bust out the hammers or daggers and destroy them, especially useful when your main is not all that strong. Bows are weaker but have a longer range than Crossbows but the Crossbows are much harder to equip requiring strength over dexterity.

Sixth, abilities, every character in the party has their own quick access panel on them so you can trigger up to 6 abilities as well as standard attack. If you change stances often to deal with different weapon groups then put the two most useful ones on the quick slots on the back 3 along with a 3rd ability of your choice. On the front two put two highly offensive abilities and 1 healing ability, A mage with the heal spell should have that assign all non-mages or those lacking heal (though you should teach every mage that) the "quick heal" command to utilize the best healing potion possible.

If you need more fight speciffic help I'll do what I can to give you some but yeah if you're not equipped properly then you're going to get a hard time and heal far more often than others, Herbalism is a must in this game if you don't intend to use mages and I'd reccomend in that situation that you go to Brecillan Forest asap because the Dalish have a permanent supply of Elf Root which combined with items available from camp = infinite potions.

[Jings]

Has anyone played this game with friendly fire enabled? All area effect spells would be almost useless, unless you were targetting archers in the distance.

[Jessweeee♪]

Oh man. Mogi was so bummed when he realized that he had friendly fired turned off and could have been spamming those area spells the whole time xD

[Iceglow]

The default is to have friendly fire on. I completed the game turning only 2 settings to the alternative, 1 was to turn off persistent blood and the other was to toggle the radial menu. You can use area of effect but you need to utilize your party very effectively, Alternatively you can utilize the Area of Effect spells so long as you have the 2nd tier group heal spell for your mage as well. I found casting an area of effect spell and then once the damage has set in I would cast the cure spell. Your party generally takes less damage than enemies from the spells so you're still in good order even after they're next to dead. Also of note, you shouldn't consider AoE spells to be the end all of the mages tree, often I found firing off several cone effect spells could do more damage than one big aoe. Ofcourse if your mage is the last one standing then you just go nuts and have to heal like crazy. To be fair, I didn't even know Friendly Fire could be turned off in the game.....

[Jings]

My tactic was to cast level 3 Blood Magic, lock all enemies in place, and then spam AoE spells. I'll turn friendly fire on and try what you suggest though Iceglow. I agree with you on the cone spells, cone of cold especially, does good damage and freezes the enemy in place, allowing your mage to retreat to a good distance.

[Vyk]

Installing it might help with the framerate issue. Not sure. I got the 360 version and no problems. Though the 360 tends to get better PC ports as its apparently closer in architecture and whatnot. PS3 always seems to get robbed in this boat. But the environments are supposed to look drab as its a very processor heavy game. There's a lot going on behind the scenes. Pretty sure they cut the graphics to avoid much of the chugging. Maybe you're -supposed- to install to get the full effect

[Flying Arrow]

Dear all,

thanks for the tips.

@Iceglow: I'm not really having trouble with the combat itself. I understand it all and can usually fly through most encounters. The thing is that I just find it sluggish, clunky and boring. It doesn't feel nearly as fluid and tactical as it should be (no doubt a result of me not playing the proper PC version). My favourite parts of the game are the plot and party interaction, so those have been keeping me going lately (in particular, trying to bed the wonderful and charming Leliana much to the disgust of my real world girlfriend). I'm currently in the thick of the Urn quest and am enjoying as much as possible a party of Me (Mage), Leliana <3, Wynne and Sten. Thank you for the effort, though. That really is a great post for those who are getting stuck with the mechanics of the combat.

[Skyblade]

Dear all,

thanks for the tips.

@Iceglow: I'm not really having trouble with the combat itself. I understand it all and can usually fly through most encounters. The thing is that I just find it sluggish, clunky and boring. It doesn't feel nearly as fluid and tactical as it should be (no doubt a result of me not playing the proper PC version). My favourite parts of the game are the plot and party interaction, so those have been keeping me going lately (in particular, trying to bed the wonderful and charming Leliana much to the disgust of my real world girlfriend). I'm currently in the thick of the Urn quest and am enjoying as much as possible a party of Me (Mage), Leliana <3, Wynne and Sten. Thank you for the effort, though. That really is a great post for those who are getting stuck with the mechanics of the combat.

Actually, my PC version has that feature too. The combat just isn't that engaging. But the dialogue is making up for it. BioWare has such excellent writing, and the voice actors do an amazing job.

[Iceglow]

well most of the voices are done by some big names out there for example heres some of the main character voices:

Katie Mulgrew as Flemmeth (Captain Janeway, Star Trek Voyager)
Tim Russ as Zathrian (Commander Tuvok, Star Trek Voyager)
Claudia Black as Morrigan (Aeryn Sun, Farscape)
Simon Templeman as Loghain Mac Tir (though he has done TV in the past, he has mostly been known for being a voice actors in games for most of the current generation of gamers history)
Steven Jay Blum as Oghren (Again not really known for himself but anyone who watches Marvel Xmen cartoon will recognize him as Wolverine!)
Steve Valentine as Alistair (PS3 fans will possibly recognize him for his work on Uncharted 2)
Jon Curry as Zevran (he's again famous more for games though I have a hard time finding info)
Mark Hildreth as Sten (Famous for being DJ Atomica in Burnout Paradise City and sounding a lot like Ryan Seacrest)
Keith Szarabajka as First Enchanter Irving (Seriously since Blackdawn in '96 this guy has been in so many games including saints row 2 and other big games)

The voice cast of this game is seriously just an amazing group of people. These are just main characters in the game.