People of Thedas

Oh, to have had these for Origins!

this and its follow-up are a couple really great posts on how to set your tactics for DA2. My party went from squishy to damn-near indestructible the moment I started using these rather than the default tactics settings. I sincerely hope she goes back and does the same for Origins.

So, except for the possibility that I may go back and tweak a couple choices, I've completed my canon game for Origins, and intend to import it to Awakening.

Problem is, I'm having a bit of trouble with what's supposed to happen when the game ends.

It's been many months now since I did a playthrough to this point, but the last time I did it, after the epilogue slides and the game credits, my character was deposited on one of the "random encounter" deserted roads, from which I could access the map and go back to camp, manage my inventory, talk to my companions (not that there was much left to say at that point, but I did get the post-Taliesen conversation from Zevran once that way.)

Now, however, when I get to the endgame, after I leave the coronation scene, I get the slides and credits, but then it takes me back to the main menu, not to the deserted road. I can't get back to the map. The specific reason I want to do this is so that I can drop stuff in the chest at Soldier's Peak to import to Awakening, since I don't know how to make the cross-character armory in The Winter Forge work.

At first I thought maybe it was DahliaLynn's wedding mod that was interfering, so I uninstalled that, but still nothing.

Anyone else have any idea what might be happening?

If there has been one feature of DAO I feel I have been missing getting the most out of in the time I've been playing, it's the more challenging combat. Mostly, this hasn't been a problem because I've been doing RP playthroughs where it doesn't matter that I'm on easy mode. But even with mods that should make it possible for me to be able to play on Normal or even Hard mode, I still can't.

Part of the problem is, I think, that my computer is a bit too slow for the game. I meet the minimum specs, but there still seems to be some sort of response lag. I can throw a bomb and it will be well over a minute before it detonates. I can take aim at a TRASH mob and be attacking it for 30-60 seconds before its health bar ever drops below 100%. So it's taking a prohibitively long time for me to clear out even trash, and all the while the trash is pounding on my companions. I had to download a mod that added a bunch of elite militia at Redcliffe to have even a hope of getting through the siege with any of the town's militia alive. And that was on Normal mode.

Lag issues aside, I suspect my other problem to be that I'm not building my companions or using the tactics efficiently. Mostly, I take the "default" tactics set and tweak it a little to add things like lyrium and health potion usage.

I've decided before DA2 comes out, I want to do one final playthrough of DAO and Awakening, and I want to challenge myself a bit and do it on a harder mode. I think I will uninstall all but the most crucial mods (the ones that fix bugs and things like Advanced Tactics) to see if that helps the response lag. But I also want to get the most out of my companions and their tactics.

So, hit me. How do you have your companions built and how do you deploy them?