Lord have mercy what is this difficulty spike????? I just beat the game on HARD, and curbstomped as I went- didn't even need to reach for the potions during the final bosses fight- but as soon as I start the Jaws of Hakkon DLC for the first time, normal mobs of Hakkonites and demons I could previously roll over and laugh are crushing me and my party. why tho @_@
Bioware heard people bitching about the base game being too easy, and a finger on the monkey's paw curled inward. >_> Just you wait - Trespasser is even harder! :D It's a really good idea to be max level going into it.
I finished Descent yesterday and found it to be a lot easier than Hakkon, for whatever reason o_o though the Bolters still kicked the everloving shit out of me many a time. The Descent final boss did squash me once, which is more than the Hakkon one did, fwiw tho. :U
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12297277/1 A fanfiction! It's basically a goofy version of origins through the lens of a soap opera. It's not the best thing this person has done, but it's hard to beat the Circus AU and the Case of the Murderous Murder.
Pffffft. I'm only partway through, but I'm already extremely tickled by how spot-on some of the voices are despite the ridiculous context:
Guys! I published my first fanfic! I'm very excited, and it would mean the world to me if you guys could read it and give me feedback! :D
I'm digging up this thread just to confess how bloody often I confuse Solas with Sollux Captor in my head because their names sound so similar. Please tell me I'm not alone in this XDDD
I just finished Dragon Age 2 (I do not have any of the DLC, at all) and I have one thing to say. What the fuck.
That was basically my reaction to the end. That and just. God. I was so exasperated and also like well what the fuck could I have even done. God dammit now a bunch of people are going to die. I kept Anders around for the last fight. Because no dammit. You are not getting to die after this and you're not just slinking off. You're going to help me deal with the fucking mess that is this city right now. After that you can do whatever. I don't care.
Spoiler I killed him for fucking everything up. I was so prepared to side with the mages. My Hawke was a mage so it felt pretty inevitable. Aside from the blood mages and bastards, I was nice to every mage in the game. But noooooooo. You had to blow up the chantry! Now you get to die, knowing I sided with the Templars!
I still sided with the mages in the end too. Like my Hawke really didn't want to at that point because holy shit we're going to start a war, but those were his people. He doesn't agree with blowing up a fucking chantry but dammit those are his people. And shit is going south. and my lover was fenris I mean. It was rival romance. But. Still.
Spoiler: da2 spoilers My first playthrough I killed Anders because I was just so done with everything and things were going south so quickly that my character just sort of panicked. My canon playthrough spared him. It was an important character moment for her, and he did express immediate guilt and despair over what he'd done (rival path). Siding with the mages was pretty inevitable, because the templars are basically slavers at this point and Anders was not really affiliated with the circle at all. Like, the templars don't care that he was one mage acting mostly alone. He wasn't a part of the circle, and much of the circle didn't want anything to do with him. but they were going to annul the circle anyway, just to repay what he did. And that was unacceptable. Also, as a mage, Mara had zero time for templar bullshit. She would have tried to stop Anders had she known about his plan, but only because it was a bad plan and would probably do more harm than good. At this point in her arc, she agreed with his goal.
Siding with the mages is non-negotiable for me. The "Kill 'em all and let the Maker sort them out" philosophy behind the Rite of Annulment isn't one I can hold with in any circumstance.
I can play a /character/ who sides with the templars, but I see it as an unambiguously morally wrong decision. But most of my characters would never be able to side with the templars in that situation, no matter what their view of Anders was.