Dragon Age: Origins... Learning curve?

So I'm at the quest in the game where you are initiated into the Gray Wardens and have to collect vials of Darkspawn Blood in the forest. Up to this point, I still am sketchy with the combat system. There seems to be too many things to be going on at once, and I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do.

How long did it take you guys to fully comprehend the combat system?

pause thr game is only way to win a battle

What character type are you playing?

I found it a little hard at first but tried to use some strategy. It became a lot easier later especially with mages' AoE spells. Try to draw enemies out instead of rushing in on a bunch of them. The Chasind Wilds quest is a little tough because you are limited by the group you are with, unless you are a mage - and even then mages are only so useful at that point. I set up the group to be able to use some range weapons as well and have them all fire on the outlying group of enemies so that they would run towards us - then attack them with melee.

I found rogues very fun to control. Just have your tank warriors take the brunt of your attack - running "Threaten" mode - and set their tactics to drink least health poultices at health < 25%. Move your rogue around and perform backstabs (note the red circle around the enemies' feet and attack where the circle is not solid - this is backstabbing) For rogues, put some points in stealth and talents that stun opponents and improve crits. I liked "dirty fighting" and riposte a lot so get those as soon as possible. Stealth allows you to scout out the enemies before attack and at higher levels attack for guaranteed crits.

Another note, traps can be useful early on too, so if you have someone putting points in the skill try to lay some traps - this can be fun and rewarding. (scout > lay traps > lure)

for dnd gamers, learning curve: none; if you've played KoTOR, there should only been some adjustment, as cIass and skills/abilities are of more variety. it's based on an improved engine used for KotOR. a plus is that its camera control, which is crucial when party combat goes 3D, is way better than that of NWN2.

if you're not familiar with party base, none JRPG combat system, then yeah, it may take a while to learn how the pause and commanding party members work.

From my experience, some gamers just play realtime early on because they can, then at some point, usually this blood collecting quest, they hit a brick wall. So I would advise all players of DA to use tactics right from the get-go, even though you don't have to, to get used to it.

There is another point though. This is one of the early few quests where you have to play with companions you didn't choose but were just thrust upon you. This makes it harder. Once you have a couple of quests under your belt with your own team, and talk to them, and getting to know their skills and their weaknesses, it gets a little easier. I am about 30 hours in and automatically know which team member should attack which enemy, I have their tactics set up so I don't have to watch them evry second unless the battle changes in some way (for exmaple, if the enemy get to my Mage).

In a nutshell, Dragon Age is one of these old school games where you get out of it what you put into it. If you don't get to know your party, if you don't set the tactics up for each of them to use their skills the best, if you don;t understand every party's weaknessess, if you don't understand the healing and agressive potions and the various crystals, you are going to be at a major disadvantage.

For example, I had one Rogue left and was fighting a monster (no spoilers!) that explodes into fire when it dies. I was very low on health with no health potions left and no Mage to heal me, so before I finally killed this monster, I used a fire crystal I had, which confers protection again fire, just a little bit, for a little while, but that crystal meant that when I killed that monster and the area was covered in flame for a moment, I had a sliver of health left. If I didn't know about that crystal, I would have died and had to go back to a previous save. That's how close some combat can be, and that's how knowledge can just give you the edge! :)

Good luck to all playing this great, intelligent, quite hard RPG!!!

Wll said DiffusionE! And with Mass Effect 2 being more of a shooter and less of a roleplayer, Dragon Age will always stand out for me as THE Bioware franchise I will follow! And with over 100 mods on DragonNexus already, DA is going to have much longer legs than Mass Effect 2, I feel!