Well, in my last post, I said I would give my thoughts on the game as I played Dragon Age: Origins. Obviously I’ve done a lot more playing than I have been reporting back to my blog. But I haven’t had a game grip me like this in a long, long time. The Half-Life series might be the next closest.
The game play is pretty intense…well…for me it is. I’ve been an MMO player for nearly 20 years, doing my job mostly as a ranged damage player. This whole strategic combat stuff isn’t my forte, but with DAO I have been schooled. I’ve found out that my strategic combat type is “micro manager”.
I have to be in control of everything. Like playing chess. This probably means that I’ll finish the game in a year when it should take me only a few weeks.
I’ve completely shut off the tactics utility. For those who don’t play the game, the tactics utility allows you to pre-program how your party members should act and respond in various situations. Like setting your healer to heal a party member if they fall below 50% health.
Nope. That’s not for me. I tell each of my party members what to do every step of the way. The tactics just never seem to work right for me. The characters just can’t make those split decisions that I can make.
For instance, my band of four adventurers was battling a huge bear. During the fight, my warrior was thrown to the ground and the bear started to maul him. The warrior was losing health fast. He was going to die if I didn’t act fast.
My mage’s first inclination would be to heal him. Or I would have had him drink a health potion. But that would not be good enough in this situation. I needed to save his ass and fast!
My mage has an ability to cast a magical force field around one ally when they are in trouble. As long as the ally doesn’t move, he or she will not be able to be harmed.
I threw the force field on the fallen warrior and he was saved. My group went on to defeat the bear without anyone being killed!
It was also at that moment that I felt I was actually getting the hand of strategic combat. It only took 20 years.