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My thoughts on this DLC *possible spoilers*


xhunterrrr
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First off, credit to BioWare for finally making a quality piece of DLC for DA:O in a long time. I found no real problems with this DLC. Looked good, ran well, played well.

 

The length of the DLC is about the same as all the others (about an hour to an hour and a half if you explore and collect everything). It might seem short, but it was a lot of fun the entire time.

 

Playing with the switches was a fun sort of mini-game that lasted through most of the DLC. Seeing chests in different colored mists made it possible to have decisions as to what is really worth: do I want to go for that chest but possibly be ambushed by multiple elite golems?

 

The Harvester: FUN boss fight. It actually lasted more than 2 minutes and there was some actual strategy involved. However, even on Hard, I don't think BioWare's claim that it was extremely hard to beat was accurate. Once you realized that every time the red mist popped up on your screen for the Harvester's first form, you just press the switch off to the side, the fight is actually really easy. None of my allies went below half health (I had the golem healing when self dropped below 75% health and all allies healing with potions at <75% health). As for the second form, I think the game ran into a little mistake. As the Harvester was jumping around, no skeleton enemies spawned. At all. So I just placed my character at one of the spots it jumped to and swung at him each time he landed.

 

Overall, this DLC is much better than the past few and is quite enjoyable to play. I just don't think it lived up to BioWare's difficulty hype. Maybe I should try Nightmare.

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Personally I thought it was a little short, as with most of the others. I would have preferred something more expensive but also more substantial (Can't complain at the price for little, almost episodic, DLCs like this though but price is always a secondary consideration to the content for me). Still, I have to admit that overall the DLC, this one included, for Dragon Age has been pretty good compared to the crud some games put out. Enjoyment is key and this was good fun whilst playing through (like a decent quest from the main game) so I was happy enough.

 

Difficulty wise, also agreed that it was a little short of the mark (but not by much), I think having the achievement for nightmare only would have solved that. I know some struggled badly with the achievement, but the fight was pretty good and had a bit of strategy involved. Upping that to requiring strategy (My first time I just wailed on it until it died) and the fight a little tougher may have helped. I recon I'm in the minority there though given I enjoy it when something is fiendishly hard, most folk don't and putting people off downloading something for that reason isn't usually a good idea. Most folk like to be pushed a bit but not frustrated, I could easily imagine the achievement originally was set for nightmare in development and was bumped down to hard for that reason.

 

There is one pretty annoying glitch where the second form of the boss gets stuck through a wall, but it doesn't seem too common (only two on this forum have come across it). It's still a shame it was completely bug free but bar that, with the switches and summoned creature to deal with, it was pretty well put together.

 

All in all, thumbs up from me. :)

Edited by Seraphias
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Worst DLC so far. Ridiculously short, and had a bad plot (as someone I know put it, with ending ripped off from "I Know What You Did Last Summer"). Pretty disappointed by this one. The quality of these DLCs should be going up, not down.

 

Agreed. Way too short, horrible plot and ending, boring characters(2 hardly want to talk, 2 don't even talk), rewards are kinda "bleh", and overall it just wasn't fun.

 

Since Awakening is an expansion, then the best DLC hands-down is Leliana's Song. That was fantastic!

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I would have preferred DLC that expanded on the main storyline of the game, which none seem to do aside form that super short Ostagar one. Honestly, I spent maybe 55 hours on my first play-thru which made the $60 price seem pretty well worth it. I enjoyed the Hell out of the original game story, and grew to like the characters I was playing with. But then the DLC starts coming out and you no longer get to play with the party you spent 55 hours with, you end up with all of these short mini missions using different characters (and I HATED playing as the Blight). At least I was able to import my rogue into Awakening, so that made it a bit less horrible. But Awakening was what, 8 hours of gameplay for $40? Not really worth it IMO, considering we got 50+ hours (if you did most of the side missions, more if you went for all of the achievements) for $60 with the original game. I really wish all of the DLC had just added more side missions/story to the original game, and that they were longer missions for $10-15 instead of half hour missions for $5. I've been really disappointed with the DLC Bioware has put out for both Mass Effect 2 and DA Origins, they're all really short. But I guess they've got EA behind them saying "Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money!" and pushing them to keep putting out subpar content. Both ME2 and DA: Origins were great games, but the DLC for both has been a bit lacking for me.

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Totally agree with the last statement; I want DLC that allows me to continue playing with my Origins party. Since that doesn't seem to be an option anymore, how about continuing to play with my Awakenings party? At least this new one let you keep your main, though. However, comparing ME2 and DA:O is insane. The support for Dragon Age has been so much better than ME2 that it's in a complete different class.

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Totally agree with the last statement; I want DLC that allows me to continue playing with my Origins party. Since that doesn't seem to be an option anymore, how about continuing to play with my Awakenings party? At least this new one let you keep your main, though. However, comparing ME2 and DA:O is insane. The support for Dragon Age has been so much better than ME2 that it's in a complete different class.

 

Sadly even though Dragon Age has more DLC, I think ME2 has better DLC. Zaeed, Kasumi, Overlord, Firewalker, and more were so amazing.

Dragon Age's has been blah at best.

 

Return to Ostagar: Expands on story SLIGHTY but is short and pretty boring.

Warden's Keep: Only play it for the chest, weapons, etc. Story there is pretty pointless and has no effect on main story.

Leliana's Song: Good, especially with dialogue, but still short and only worth one playthrough.

Darkspawn Chronicles: POINTLESS.

Awakening: Kinda fun, but way overpriced. I got the disc brand new at $20 and felt ripped off.

Golems of Amgarrak: Boring, short, pointless. Why give us a dwarf and even a golem teammate in the main game, then release a DLC about dwarves and golems and not let us bring them along? WHY?!

 

Leliana's Song was the best of the pack(not including the Shale DLC). I think each of ME2's DLCs hit that quality or better(aside from Normandy Crash Site which was just a diversion, and the misc. DLCs which we won't count).

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2nd worst DLC after Darkspawn.

 

Difficulty Achievement (The Harvester was fucking hard)

The storyline wasn't good at all.

It took me 2 hours to do it (and I was taking my time)

 

Seriously, I didn't really liked any DLC so far aside The Stone Prisonners which was the best by far imo. Warden's Keep was also OK like return to ostagar but both were crazy fast.

 

darkspawn chronicle, leiliana's song and golems of amgarrak sucked big time. (Only my opinion tho)

 

BUT, Awakening was freaking awesome, even better than the original game... The storyline was great, the character were funny, some really funny quote etc etc.

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I didn't really like it. I thought it was straight-up annoying. The fucking switches were annoying as all hell because I couldn't see anything after I activated one. I would see some objects that require a specific color and then when I activate that switch I can't see anything more than five feet in front of me and then I go to a new color or turn it off and see I missed something and have to run around trying to get that color again. The only good thing they did was allow you to use your Main Character instead of the bullshit from the last two DLCs that made you play as a fucking Darkspawn and then as Leliana.

 

So, to better organize what I absolutely hated and what I liked, I will list it off

 

Bad

-Couldn't see shit with those filters on.

-Reminds me of Pinnacle Station from ME1 where they tried to make a gameplay focused thing instead of a story focused thing. That in itself is enough to piss me off.

-Little to no story what-so-ever.

-Difficulty achievement was no where near as difficult as hyped to be. I know I only did it on Hard, but even then it didn't feel to different from my usual Casual setting. It was just like any other difficult boss battle.

-The Bronto was annoying as hell. Having both that and a huge Golem made back-tracking impossible because they would just stand there when I try to turn back.

-Not really a big issue normally, but since I had to do a lot of searching for the those damn research notes I feel obligated to include this - every time I hit the switches it teleported the Golem and Bronto right next to me and scared the shit out of me since I though it was another scenario where the regular world has a shit load of Golems that don't appear when you have a filter on.

 

Good

-Got to finally use my Warden again.

-Was only 400msp instead of 560 like every other short DLC that has been released (Every Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and Saints Row 2 DLC is that odd priced 560).

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Bad

-Not really a big issue normally, but since I had to do a lot of searching for the those damn research notes I feel obligated to include this - every time I hit the switches it teleported the Golem and Bronto right next to me and scared the shit out of me since I though it was another scenario where the regular world has a shit load of Golems that don't appear when you have a filter on.

 

Yeah, that glitch was stupid.

 

Anyway the game is at 1650... I have my 1650... They will probably get it up to the max which is 1750...I hope another 100 and not two 50G DLC.

 

One would be enough... And I would like something more like story related mission, than that crappy Dwarf one.

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I kind of enjoyed it overall. I like what they've done with the dwarves in the game so more dwarven stuff was welcome. The puzzle aspect was much more well done than I was expecting. For what the mission was, I thought it was a nice bit of gameplay for $5.

 

It was mighty lame of them to introduce a difficulty-based achievement this late in the game's life. And I don't see what's so hard about introducing more DLC like Stone Prisoner, Warden's Keep, or Return to Ostagar that can be integrated into a campaign game and completed with your regular Origins or Awakening party. I suppose they would say that most players are finished with the campaign by now, but Origins has allowed you to do DLC missions in the postgame from the start. And all of ME2's DLC has been integrated into the regular campaign/postgame.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Amgarrak was alright in my opinion. I'm always glad to play my own Warden and as a regular player of DA I also approve of the additional item rewards these DLCs provide for Origins and Awakening.

 

This DLC also seems to have some minor relevance for DA2, since the Harvester enemy is likely to return in the sequel (you can see Hawke face one in the brief flashback sequence of the trailer), so I think Amgarrak may have been meant to just introduce a new monster to the game.

 

And since I'm really sure that Bioware will use the whole 1750 for this game, I hope for some DLC either about Zevran's Past or another one which will somehow have relevance in the sequel.

 

 

And no more difficulty related achievements, PLEASE! :p

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  • 2 weeks later...
Bad

-Couldn't see shit with those filters on.

 

seriously.

 

-Reminds me of Pinnacle Station from ME1 where they tried to make a gameplay focused thing instead of a story focused thing. That in itself is enough to piss me off.

 

was it gameplay focused? i dunno. it was an annoying set of switch puzzles, that's for sure.

 

-Difficulty achievement was no where near as difficult as hyped to be. I know I only did it on Hard, but even then it didn't feel to different from my usual Casual setting. It was just like any other difficult boss battle.

 

granted, i dupe-tome glitched my character, but i was sort of unimpressed. just judging from how often my team died, it wasn't THAT hard on nightmare. i only lost all three of them once, and it wasn't in the final boss fight. nothing like being surrounded by five golems in a small space.

 

i brought them good gear from origins and awakening, and set smart tactics for them. the only who kept dying was my healer, the runic golem -- they spec'ed it pretty weirdly, and you can't re-spec it.

 

-The Bronto was annoying as hell. Having both that and a huge Golem made back-tracking impossible because they would just stand there when I try to turn back.

 

they liked to block me into corners, and jam up pathways, yeah.

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Worst DLC so far. Ridiculously short, and had a bad plot (as someone I know put it, with an ending ripped off from "I Know What You Did Last Summer"). Pretty disappointed by this one. The quality of these DLCs should be going up, not down.

 

They are going up - all of the other DLCs for this have been unbelievably bad.

 

I'm hoping that this is because theyve been working on Witch Hunt at the same time and were pouring most of their efforts into that.

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Just finished this and I enjoyed it. It was much easier than I was expecting it to be from reading everything on here. I didn't find the Harvester to be that difficult on Hard with my Archer Rogue. Every shot did over 250 damage and Arrow of Slaying was doing over 550 with every hit, managed to get a 611.

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  • 3 weeks later...

To be perfectly honest I was really dissappointed, I did it quite fast, no really interesting storyline because the only time you really talk is when you start it and when you meet the guys brother, other then that you sometimes hear a comment while playing.

So I myself disliked this DLC although the others were great so far, even though they werent that long either.

Anyway I still got to do the Witch Hunt DLC so I hope that one doesn't dissappoint me like this one did.

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  • 2 months later...

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