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Dragon Age: Origins | Heroes of Ferelden, we must unite against the Blight!
- Thread starter ivar
- Start date
I was going to make a more involved topic but since I was too lazy to do that at least there's a topic now !
Daggers are pretty buggy, yeah, there's a user made patch on the PC versions, but basically Daggers are supposed to use some amount of your Cunning (I think it's 50/50 with Strength) to determine damage instead of pure Strength like a normal melee weapon, but it's just pure Strength like everything else so your damage sucks if you try to become a Cunning rogue (which the Lethality talent makes somewhat viable). It's not really a huge deal, just build for strength and don't go too far passed the minimum cunning required for the diplomacy talent thinger and for the rogue skills that require it. Pity it effects disarming traps/unlocking chests beyond the minimum cunning required otherwise...
I've played through twice and am about a third of the way through round 3, though I haven't been able to mess with it much since it's been a very busy couple of weeks for me in class. I think I would say that while it has some fairly major flaws (even with good tacticsing the AI is pretty stupid and kind of requires you to control your party members a lot, mages are horribly mistuned, a few of the dungeons are a little too long to be enjoyable if your party isn't prepared enough to blitz it at a good rate) it is my favorite offline RPG to date. I think it is easily the best RPG to date as far as character interaction with your party members, something Bioware has done well several times before but does almost perfectly here. Alistair and Morrigan are two of the best RPG characters I can recall (hopefully they'll both at least influence the sequel that is in the works), and while most of the other party members have a little less depth since they're not as entwined in the main story(though Zevran and Leliana are close), the chatter between your party members as you wander around is just amazing. They feel very alive, and in addition to feeling like actual people they're all people you'd actually want to know.
The plot itself is pretty good too and plays out very differently every time you go through. The game has maybe 8 major events, all of which last at least five hours on average your first playthrough, and the second 6 of which have at least two major diversions (and usually several minor ones) allowing for a very different playthrough every time. Even the army you're collecting throughout most of the game changes pretty drastically - you can get completely different armies depending on the ending of two of the three army collection events.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the word "Origins" in the title refers to the side stories you play through at the very beginning before you're whisked away on the main plot of the game, and most of them are absolutely excellent. The introduction is the most painful part of most RPGs (looking at you every Final Fantasy, Fable, Fable 2), but DA:O really grabs you right off the bat and makes you want to keep playing - many people say that the origin story they picked is one of, if not their very favorite part of the game. There's six origins depending on your race/class, so it's pretty interesting, and like everything else in the game they too can vary based on the decisions you make.
That was awfully disjointed, but as was made rather obvious I'm a huge fan of the game... would definitely love to field any questions about it people may have!
Daggers are pretty buggy, yeah, there's a user made patch on the PC versions, but basically Daggers are supposed to use some amount of your Cunning (I think it's 50/50 with Strength) to determine damage instead of pure Strength like a normal melee weapon, but it's just pure Strength like everything else so your damage sucks if you try to become a Cunning rogue (which the Lethality talent makes somewhat viable). It's not really a huge deal, just build for strength and don't go too far passed the minimum cunning required for the diplomacy talent thinger and for the rogue skills that require it. Pity it effects disarming traps/unlocking chests beyond the minimum cunning required otherwise...
I've played through twice and am about a third of the way through round 3, though I haven't been able to mess with it much since it's been a very busy couple of weeks for me in class. I think I would say that while it has some fairly major flaws (even with good tacticsing the AI is pretty stupid and kind of requires you to control your party members a lot, mages are horribly mistuned, a few of the dungeons are a little too long to be enjoyable if your party isn't prepared enough to blitz it at a good rate) it is my favorite offline RPG to date. I think it is easily the best RPG to date as far as character interaction with your party members, something Bioware has done well several times before but does almost perfectly here. Alistair and Morrigan are two of the best RPG characters I can recall (hopefully they'll both at least influence the sequel that is in the works), and while most of the other party members have a little less depth since they're not as entwined in the main story(though Zevran and Leliana are close), the chatter between your party members as you wander around is just amazing. They feel very alive, and in addition to feeling like actual people they're all people you'd actually want to know.
The plot itself is pretty good too and plays out very differently every time you go through. The game has maybe 8 major events, all of which last at least five hours on average your first playthrough, and the second 6 of which have at least two major diversions (and usually several minor ones) allowing for a very different playthrough every time. Even the army you're collecting throughout most of the game changes pretty drastically - you can get completely different armies depending on the ending of two of the three army collection events.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the word "Origins" in the title refers to the side stories you play through at the very beginning before you're whisked away on the main plot of the game, and most of them are absolutely excellent. The introduction is the most painful part of most RPGs (looking at you every Final Fantasy, Fable, Fable 2), but DA:O really grabs you right off the bat and makes you want to keep playing - many people say that the origin story they picked is one of, if not their very favorite part of the game. There's six origins depending on your race/class, so it's pretty interesting, and like everything else in the game they too can vary based on the decisions you make.
That was awfully disjointed, but as was made rather obvious I'm a huge fan of the game... would definitely love to field any questions about it people may have!
Atlas you have to like reading. This game has the best writing of all videogaming history. Everything that involves text is utterly genius: the dialogues, the item descriptions, the background...
On the other hand the graphics are subpar, which is basically the main flaw - and the worst thing is that this implies that character animation kinda sucks as well, so if you just finished Assassin's Creed 2, it might be a bit hard to tolerate it at first.
...but then again THE DIALOGUES FUCK THEY'RE AWESOME.
Also if you can play it on PC.
On the other hand the graphics are subpar, which is basically the main flaw - and the worst thing is that this implies that character animation kinda sucks as well, so if you just finished Assassin's Creed 2, it might be a bit hard to tolerate it at first.
...but then again THE DIALOGUES FUCK THEY'RE AWESOME.
Also if you can play it on PC.
The character interaction is definitely the best thing to sell the game on, I think the best compliment I can pay the game is that I would have been perfectly happy playing the game without ever getting in combat at all because the storytelling and the character interaction was so good. Every time your character talks you get to choose between options (typically 4-6, with more being available depending on the situation and your Cunning(and occasionally your other stats) stat. You really feel like you're interacting with the characters, both because your lines are written well enough that you want to pick them, and because your party members have very varied reactions depending on what you pick most of the time, and the voice acting for them is just amazing, probably the best of any video game I've played. You feel like they're real people, and it's really fun interacting with them.
The combat is above average, using a FF12-esque tactics system, but with a great deal less automation and forcing you to actually play as the character you control to make it a lot more interactive. There's a few things they could have done better (some handy potential conditions are missing, the computer doesn't understand mana conservation), but in general it works well, and the customization of your characters is very good because of talent trees. There's a variety of advanced classes you can progress into, which admittedly don't effect gameplay too severely for the most part, but they all actually exist in plot for more than flavor, with several of them (Templar, Blood Mage, Bard, Assassin) having fairly major impact on the plot.
I think my first playthrough something like 60 of the first 78 hours I owned the game were spent playing it, it's just a game you don't want to put down for the most part.
And if nothing else atlas, there's a bisexual assassin elf who is so very into bondage and YOU.
The combat is above average, using a FF12-esque tactics system, but with a great deal less automation and forcing you to actually play as the character you control to make it a lot more interactive. There's a few things they could have done better (some handy potential conditions are missing, the computer doesn't understand mana conservation), but in general it works well, and the customization of your characters is very good because of talent trees. There's a variety of advanced classes you can progress into, which admittedly don't effect gameplay too severely for the most part, but they all actually exist in plot for more than flavor, with several of them (Templar, Blood Mage, Bard, Assassin) having fairly major impact on the plot.
I think my first playthrough something like 60 of the first 78 hours I owned the game were spent playing it, it's just a game you don't want to put down for the most part.
And if nothing else atlas, there's a bisexual assassin elf who is so very into bondage and YOU.
Atlas,
Story is absolutely fantastic and more than just the character interactions there is an awesome mythology and back story (with TONS of codex to read). btw, you'll like all the characters except for maybe STEN BECAUSE HE IS A FUCKING DICK but they're are fleshed out and interesting with unique personalities (hell even asshole sten). Alistair is my home boy! And Morigan is one sexy bitch (that brit accent is so charming). Wynne is kidna boring actually, but there is an awesome sock convo with Alistair!
Play on nightmare and it's an awesome challenge until you actually figure out the game's tricks (3 mages + tank and forcefield = game over). Class balance is actually pretty good though mages are the best class in the game (and arcane warrior easily the best specialization). Any class is interesting to play with and though none can match the destructiveness of the arcane warrior, they have their strengths (though bow rogues with AOS might want to have a word with me).
In other words, get it. You will love it. It is objectively fun. And lengthy. Dungeon exploring and RPG elements are awesome, weapons are awesome, character building is deep, character interaction is the best in any videogame to date (I'm not exaggerating, nothing is even close to the likability of the dragon age crew) and fuck it's just engrossing. Origin stories are great (though don't do Dalis Elf, trust it's the weakest though not that bad just not nearly as great as the others).
Story is absolutely fantastic and more than just the character interactions there is an awesome mythology and back story (with TONS of codex to read). btw, you'll like all the characters except for maybe STEN BECAUSE HE IS A FUCKING DICK but they're are fleshed out and interesting with unique personalities (hell even asshole sten). Alistair is my home boy! And Morigan is one sexy bitch (that brit accent is so charming). Wynne is kidna boring actually, but there is an awesome sock convo with Alistair!
Play on nightmare and it's an awesome challenge until you actually figure out the game's tricks (3 mages + tank and forcefield = game over). Class balance is actually pretty good though mages are the best class in the game (and arcane warrior easily the best specialization). Any class is interesting to play with and though none can match the destructiveness of the arcane warrior, they have their strengths (though bow rogues with AOS might want to have a word with me).
In other words, get it. You will love it. It is objectively fun. And lengthy. Dungeon exploring and RPG elements are awesome, weapons are awesome, character building is deep, character interaction is the best in any videogame to date (I'm not exaggerating, nothing is even close to the likability of the dragon age crew) and fuck it's just engrossing. Origin stories are great (though don't do Dalis Elf, trust it's the weakest though not that bad just not nearly as great as the others).
I'm going to have to massively disagree with that. Have you played an arcane warrior before? You go from DPS mage to ridiculous tank with shit loads of sustainables. Couple with spirit healer to become a walking health dispenser or blood mage to be able to cast magic from constitution (to very different forms of play).
Or how about going ranger rogue, which lets you have sustainable animals out on the field. That's a whole nother party member, obviously radically changing the dynamics of a fight.
Or how about shapreshifter (note to DA noobs DO NOT EVER specialize in shape shifter) where you go from mage to mediocre melee character?
Berserker's can't tank like champions/templars (kinda) can, and reaver (which sucks tbh) can't let you tank at all.
Bard... yeah doesn't make a huge impact and duelist sucks, assassin just gives useful skills to the DPS DW rogue. But quite a few of the specializations can have profound impacts on the gameplay (with arcane warrior being the most obvious example where the character just plays completely differently).
Except I'm arguing that most of the specializations ARE game changing and a few aren't (templer for the most part, assassin, duelist, and spirit healer is only game changing in terms of how an MC arcane warrior is played). And bard too, but it does effect profoundly how to properly level one's rogue (with SOC and letahlity you can pump into cunning instead of strength, making up for the reduced attack rate of low strength).
Warrior - templer (not really), reaver (yes), champion (yes), berserker (yes)
Rogue - bard (not really), assassin (no), duelist (no), ranger (yes)
Mage - arcane warrior (YES), shapreshifter (yes), blood mage (yes), spirit healer (yes for the most part)
This is obviously contingent on you actually using the specialization's abilities (yeah it isn't very game changing if you invest points into it but barely use it like neglecting blood mage advantages). One little tree of abilities can change a whole lot.
Hint: do use the shapeshifter form if you want to turn into an animal. Do not have three mages and one tank. Do not read the gamefaqs article on how to build your character before playing through the game at least once. Play this game like you want to play it and like it's supposed to be, not like what some nerd told you to do because it's supposedly the best option statistically.
(this isn't directed specifically at you DBM)
(this isn't directed specifically at you DBM)
You seem to be taking an incredibly liberal definition of "severely effecting gameplay". Adding an extra ability or two, giving a minor attribute bonus, and maybe changing your auto-attack speed does not dramatically change how you play a class. Reaver and Berserker play basically identically to any other DPS warrior with new passives that make them harder to heal/do slightly more damage, as does Champion with a tank or DPS warrior, just giving you a new button to hit with War Cry. Templar is much the same, though at least its new button is Ranged, which is new.
Rogue is much the same, Assassin and Duelist give you new abilities and passives but you're still using the same base rogue melee game, Bard can work for either ranged or melee rogues but you're still playing the same game with a new passive. Ranger is the most game changing since it gives you a pet, but it doesn't really change anything either; you're just doing what you were before with a furball doing damage beside you.
Mage gameplay is definitely the one that changes the most (which isn't a surprise since Mage gameplay in general is much more varied), since Spirit Healer gives you some much needed variety in healing with an aura and an AoE, Blood Mage lets you cast off Con, Arcane Warrior makes you a hybrid of sorts (although most people just play it as a warrior with ridiculous mitigation and cut out magic almost completely with the passive stacking), and Shapeshifter makes you wish there was a way to respec your character.
I never said that they were irrelevant since they do give you some benefit and some are obviously more ideal than others(with Spirit Healer frankly being almost too good), but adding like two buttons is not even close to game changing for something that is presumably supposed to be a major decision in developing your character. There's still combinations that are better than others (obviously you need a tank, bard is helpful in caster heavy parts for the mana regen, etc.) but the advanced classes play almost identically to their base counterparts with an extra button added in, which is lazy at best and one of the few major weaknesses in this game that I suspect will be improved dramatically in the sequel.
Also cunning rogues are terribly suboptimal unless you're playing on PC with the dagger patch (in which case they're probably at least on par if you're controlling them but the AI doesn't flank very well).
I would agree with not worrying much on any readers' first playthrough about building optimal characters or party, it's pretty necessary on Nightmare (especially if you opt not to use some of the more broken shit like Force Field), but on Normal or even Hard it isn't too important. A lot of the fun of this game is playing it how you want it; the minmaxing can wait until you've explored a bit, I'd think.
As far as tips for new people
-While most classes will get it to the minimum required for the diplomacy skill thinger near-automatically eventually, it's not a terrible idea to boost Cunning to 16 early on just to make sure you can take it every time you have the chance... being able to have as many dialogue options available as possible is really helpful just to make sure you're able to say what you want to say.
-Talk to your characters! Mostly because they're interesting, but also because they tell you a lot of stuff that seems completely random and useless but usually isn't. A lot of them hint at gifts that are important to them. Use gifts, by the way - you're rather unlikely(read: impossible) to cap out your approval with all your party members through dialogue alone and they get absolutely incredible bonuses when you're +100. This is doubly true with people like Alistair (Constitution) and Morrigan (Magic) who have inspiration boosts to their key stats (not everyone does for some reason...)
-Teach Morrigan Heal oh my GOD. Seriously. It's only one point. You'll thank me later. Besides, you never know when you'll accidentally kill the party's only spirit healer forever on consecutive playthroughs. Cough. Yeah. Be more careful with potential party members than I was round 1...
-Do the sidequests! It isn't hugely essential since outside of the final events enemies scale based on your level, but you sidequest are worth at least a fifth of the total xp, offer pretty good rewards, and for the most part are pretty interesting compared to quests in games like Fable where it was obvious filler content.
EDIT: Also Sten is a douche. He always likes me by the end but I'm still not a fan. It might be his gruff monotone, his lack of a starting advanced class thing (at least Morrigan has SOMETHING even though she _practically_ starts without one...), but it's probably just the fact while he is merely a decent character every other character is spectacular, and for the most part could each be the best party member in a game of their own if they weren't all competing with each other. Alistair, Morrigan, Zevran, Leliana(though I wish they'd laid off on her accent a bit), Shale, and Ohgren are all just great.
EDIT2: Also as far as "reasons the game is great" it dawned on me none of us mentioned the music. It's not something you'd see from, say, Nobou Uematsu, but it plays out like a movie score and it's very fitting and effective. You don't notice it very often, but it helps grab you enough that you're not listening for it because you're immersed in the scene.
Well this is subjective. I agree when you say that you basically hit the same buttons when you play Berserker or Champion, but it has an impact on how you see your character and it may be important to some players. And also, you (not you in particular, I'm saying this as a general rule) have to step back and look at what the game shows you and what it really does compared to other games: in DA:O, you have as many classes as in any other good medieval occidental RPG, but the way they're presented makes you notice how similar they are (or aren't depending on your opinion). I mean a Berserker and a Templar are as different in Dragon Age as they were in Baldur's Gate, same for Wizard/Sorcerer - both are Mages but the former is focusing on Magic and the later on Willpower. Bioware just took everything that was in their old D&D rule books and synthesized it all into a clear ruleset - that's also why you have damage and armor penetration and not 864975 types of damage.
Indeed Morrigan with heal makes her a lot cuter
Well he hits hard at least :) But seriously, I agree that he's not that developed - or maybe he is and only the Bioware staff knows - but Shale is horrible ugh I can't bear
her (oh no it's Samus all over again).
The music is good yeah (got the soundtrack :D) but don't reference weak Uematsu :(
Thanks Firestorm!
Teifu I think you're totally trivializing the impact of the specializations. You say all ranger is just another pet, but I can apply that same logic to say the spirit healer specialization (which you agree is game changing) by noting that all it does is give you some extra healing abilities but other than that you play the same way. I mean, you do realize that you can control your pets right, and they have their own abilities as well? Basically it's introducing another party member; I seriously fail to see how that isn't game changing.
now theoretically I would agree that berskerer plays exactly like a DPS two-hander/off-tank but in practice I find it isn't so. You can't rock the same sustainables due to the stamina depleting qualities of the berserker, you can't tail enemies if you have aggro as the point of the berserker is to inflict damage and quickly with some survivability.
Reavers play dramatically different just nobody really uses it because it sucks overall. it's basically like a tankish warrior minus the tanking; you're taking constant damage (dishing constant damage, too) and do more damage as you weaken, meaning you can't tank and have no survivability. Couple it with the berserker and yeah it's a completely different approach t playing; you're basically a suicide bomber. this little example shows how you gloss over the impact having two specializations has, as they are interdependent and effect one another in interesting ways. arcane warrior is different from arcane warrior + spriti healer or arcane warrior + blood mage. Standard DPS warrior is different from berserker + reaver. Duelist abilities essentially, to work, require you to eliminate use of backstabs (kinda a big deal, though I overlooked that fact in other posts).
Bard totally does impact how your dude is leveled. And ummm the dex issue is not a problem for lethality cunning rogues (since lethality uses cunning as the strength modifier, not dexterity). It's only an issue for attack, but with the bard's song of courage you can avoid that by boosing attack score depending on how high your cunning is, also increasing total party damage by increasing your entire team's attack. Not really gameplay chaning, but massively character building changing. Plus, dagger/dagger is not as good as axe (buy from camp)/dagger (gaining its passive abilities for the axe).
oh and never shape shifter. I know some guy said play how you like and i totally i agree with that, it's just that nobody will ever like playing shapeshifter because it sucks and you WILL regret it. Try it out with morrigan if you're unsure before you commit talents/(gulp)specialization points toward it and you will see just how bad it really is.
OH and don't bother putting too much into cunning if you're not a rogue because you get FIVE freebies from the mage tower and you only need 16 for the coercion skill, to whomever it concerns.
Teifu I think you're totally trivializing the impact of the specializations. You say all ranger is just another pet, but I can apply that same logic to say the spirit healer specialization (which you agree is game changing) by noting that all it does is give you some extra healing abilities but other than that you play the same way. I mean, you do realize that you can control your pets right, and they have their own abilities as well? Basically it's introducing another party member; I seriously fail to see how that isn't game changing.
now theoretically I would agree that berskerer plays exactly like a DPS two-hander/off-tank but in practice I find it isn't so. You can't rock the same sustainables due to the stamina depleting qualities of the berserker, you can't tail enemies if you have aggro as the point of the berserker is to inflict damage and quickly with some survivability.
Reavers play dramatically different just nobody really uses it because it sucks overall. it's basically like a tankish warrior minus the tanking; you're taking constant damage (dishing constant damage, too) and do more damage as you weaken, meaning you can't tank and have no survivability. Couple it with the berserker and yeah it's a completely different approach t playing; you're basically a suicide bomber. this little example shows how you gloss over the impact having two specializations has, as they are interdependent and effect one another in interesting ways. arcane warrior is different from arcane warrior + spriti healer or arcane warrior + blood mage. Standard DPS warrior is different from berserker + reaver. Duelist abilities essentially, to work, require you to eliminate use of backstabs (kinda a big deal, though I overlooked that fact in other posts).
Bard totally does impact how your dude is leveled. And ummm the dex issue is not a problem for lethality cunning rogues (since lethality uses cunning as the strength modifier, not dexterity). It's only an issue for attack, but with the bard's song of courage you can avoid that by boosing attack score depending on how high your cunning is, also increasing total party damage by increasing your entire team's attack. Not really gameplay chaning, but massively character building changing. Plus, dagger/dagger is not as good as axe (buy from camp)/dagger (gaining its passive abilities for the axe).
oh and never shape shifter. I know some guy said play how you like and i totally i agree with that, it's just that nobody will ever like playing shapeshifter because it sucks and you WILL regret it. Try it out with morrigan if you're unsure before you commit talents/(gulp)specialization points toward it and you will see just how bad it really is.
OH and don't bother putting too much into cunning if you're not a rogue because you get FIVE freebies from the mage tower and you only need 16 for the coercion skill, to whomever it concerns.
Morrigan leaving your party at the end of the game is completely shit. I am at the dragon fight, but I need to reload in redcliff and follow the option that allows her to continue with my team (if this is even possible) because I am completely fucked against the dragon without her. I have Wyne but all she knows is fire and healing/support moves.
I will have a couple more goes and try and use the ballistas because I hadnt actually noticed them until my last runthrough, but regardless, it is really shit that you can play through the game and develop plans and strategies or whatever and then have the carpet pulled out from underneath you for trying to play in good faith.
Luckily I wasnt actually using Alistair when he left, I got pissed off at him for yelling at me for sacrificing the princess, when he didnt offer any suggestions of alternatives himself.
I will have a couple more goes and try and use the ballistas because I hadnt actually noticed them until my last runthrough, but regardless, it is really shit that you can play through the game and develop plans and strategies or whatever and then have the carpet pulled out from underneath you for trying to play in good faith.
Luckily I wasnt actually using Alistair when he left, I got pissed off at him for yelling at me for sacrificing the princess, when he didnt offer any suggestions of alternatives himself.
On the whole this game is really fun, but my experience has been totally different to any of yours it seems. I dont like the plot at all, and the dialogues generally are just obstacles that have to be endured so I can get back to exploring.
I think that mostly is because they are spoken instead of being able to just read them. It is a pain in the ass listening to someone with an accent saying I ... earugh ... am ... ouch ... dy- ... arrrrgh ... -ing.
Oh yeah, dont play this game on PS3. It crashes, and its as slow as hell.
Have a nice day.
I've been having a decent ammount of fun with it but pretty much because character customization (Skillwise and actually building a "character" for your... character) is awesome. Dialogue is stellar too and the mere thought of all the options the game has to offer boggles my mind. However the story is shit, its completely and utterly way too generic fantasy story.
As far as your issue, Hip, that fight is definitely winnable with zero mages and I only had one both of my first times through (my first file I never recruited Wynne and my second I had the same issue with Morrigan and Wynne left in her crisis moment, but fortunately I was a mage myself...). The fight itself is pretty challenging if you don't have much of your army left from the trash mobs leading up to it, but healing is really all you need from a mage - unless you're just chugging mana potions, the boss has way too much hp for the mage to do very good damage anyway, imo... it's one of the only encounters in the game where they're a little less all powerful (outside of cheesy shit like Force Field on the tank, I guess). The fight is just much more challenging than anything before it, I think, more so than any problem with your composition - especially compared to the rest of the dungeon crawling right before it, since the enemies aren't leveled to your party like everything else in the game.
As far as the plot issues the two of you have mentioned, it doesn't really bug me much... I'm a lot more interested as a fan in the characters being interesting and engaging than the plot itself giving me anything too amazing. Landsmeet on is pretty interesting to me, although I'd have preferred an end villain with some character development... though Loghain fills the role well, especially, I'm told, if you've read the books.
I imagine it'd be a lot less fun if you weren't into the characters, though... dumping Alistair outside of his crisis like that is telling there. For me a lot of what(most of what?) makes the game fun to me is the character interaction and the psuedodiplomacy... I think it's easier for me to ignore the plot itself since I care about the characters individual stories and plights, so that kind of became my focus going through rather than the big overarching blight thing.
As far as party members leaving I've only had Wynne (which is unavoidable afaik) when getting an achievement and Shale under the same circumstances (which isn't, but I wanted to see how it would happen)...
EDIT: As far as something that might actually help, Hip...
I'm told the general vs. dragon combat of not putting anyone in melee range and spreading out, using fire resist gear if you have it, etc. works pretty decently. I've always just sat a tank in melee range and had everyone else attack from range (I tried meleeing with my rogue my first time but the computer AI wasn't able to adjust to the high damage on the tank quite well enough to be reliable so I had to control the healer and then the AI sat my rogue in cleaves so I found it was just best not to try to melee, even with revival my rogue spent more time dead than alive), but in general I think the key is just not having more than one person get hit by the cleave or by the fire breath. Try to melee from the side if you have someone other than a tank in melee range and play defensively... the armies help a lot, though I would focus on using them in the add stages since that's the only time I've ever lost a non-melee dps party member in that fight... hard to deal with them crushing Wynne, as seems to happen easily to healers. I've heard the Ballistas are very effective (especially if you can keep the boss at distance and rail him with them while he's flown away to give way to the groups of adds), but I've never had much luck with them.
As far as the plot issues the two of you have mentioned, it doesn't really bug me much... I'm a lot more interested as a fan in the characters being interesting and engaging than the plot itself giving me anything too amazing. Landsmeet on is pretty interesting to me, although I'd have preferred an end villain with some character development... though Loghain fills the role well, especially, I'm told, if you've read the books.
I imagine it'd be a lot less fun if you weren't into the characters, though... dumping Alistair outside of his crisis like that is telling there. For me a lot of what(most of what?) makes the game fun to me is the character interaction and the psuedodiplomacy... I think it's easier for me to ignore the plot itself since I care about the characters individual stories and plights, so that kind of became my focus going through rather than the big overarching blight thing.
As far as party members leaving I've only had Wynne (which is unavoidable afaik) when getting an achievement and Shale under the same circumstances (which isn't, but I wanted to see how it would happen)...
EDIT: As far as something that might actually help, Hip...
I'm told the general vs. dragon combat of not putting anyone in melee range and spreading out, using fire resist gear if you have it, etc. works pretty decently. I've always just sat a tank in melee range and had everyone else attack from range (I tried meleeing with my rogue my first time but the computer AI wasn't able to adjust to the high damage on the tank quite well enough to be reliable so I had to control the healer and then the AI sat my rogue in cleaves so I found it was just best not to try to melee, even with revival my rogue spent more time dead than alive), but in general I think the key is just not having more than one person get hit by the cleave or by the fire breath. Try to melee from the side if you have someone other than a tank in melee range and play defensively... the armies help a lot, though I would focus on using them in the add stages since that's the only time I've ever lost a non-melee dps party member in that fight... hard to deal with them crushing Wynne, as seems to happen easily to healers. I've heard the Ballistas are very effective (especially if you can keep the boss at distance and rail him with them while he's flown away to give way to the groups of adds), but I've never had much luck with them.