Alonshowman

Kind of bumping this thread. I have studied the wiki tactics page indeed. Actually, I have done a full proofreading of it. Still, there are many sentences that I couldn't correct because they don't seem to make much sense. I have written a list of those sentences in the talk page in the hopes that someone can clarify their meaning.

Thank you, that woked :) Where is the larger action bar? I can't find it. And what is LAA patch?

Thank you for your recommendations, theskymoves. I'm installing these mods one at a time to make sure that they don't mess up my game, and so far so good. However, I'm not sure of what to do with Campfire Texture fix (from MRP). According to the description you should only install that mod on games in which you haven't yet recruited Morrigan, but I already recruited her long ago. Is it OK to install the mod (or at least this part of the mod) anyway?

Thanks, that clarifies it.

OK, I got it wrong, then.

Thank you, theskymoves, excellent answer, as usual. Keeping that in mind, I think I'll just drop the immersion approach and loot everything. When it comes to immersion sometimes you have to compromise. Yeah, good question. In the case of Redcliffe Castle I consider it not specially friendly and decided to loot everything. The reasoning is that, according to the note you find soon after you enter the castle, the earl and the other nobles are murderers who like to kill innocents to get what they want. Meaning that the riches in the castle were obtained by "evil" means, so it's "OK" to take them. This is very subjective, of course, what the note says might not even be true. On the other hand, I assume that the goods stored in chests in the village belong to the villagers, so I was leaving them alone because there doesn't seem to be any good reason for a good character to take their stuff.

I have the habit of not looting chests or other containers in friendly areas (Lothering, Redcliffe, etc.). If there is a chest in, say, a house in Redcliffe and I loot it, then I'm a thief, whether somebody sees me or not. Since I'm playing "good" characters, I shouldn't do that, so I avoid it to improve game immersion. The obvious consequence of doing that is that I miss some money and gear, but that's fine with me, it's a part of the challenge. But I wonder if that might be counterproductive in the sense that by avoiding those containers I might be missing important quest items. For instance, I checked the chest in the mill in Redcliffe and found a love letter there that looks like it might be important for some side quest. Is that common in this game? Is there important content that I will miss if I don't loot containers in friendly areas? Also, is there anyone who also does this? For the record, I'm using an auto loot mod, so checking each container to see if it contains some important item is not really an option, as soon as I click the chest I loot it and it can't be undone.

Thank you for your very detailed explanation, theskymoves. I've reinstalled everything following your directions. Unfortunately I couldn't notice any difference between this installation and the Vortex installation. What was working with Vortex still works now, and what was not working with Vortex (described in this thread) still doesn't work. I did notice this happening with Vortex, though. It wasn't a big deal for me because I could fix it by reinstalling the removed mods with daupdater, but it is quite inconvenient, for sure.

@theskymoves: I eventually uninstalled and reinstalled everything following your detailed directions in this other thread, but I didn't notice any improvement. The game still fails to follow tactics properly as described in the first post about one third of the time, which is a lot. Any ideas of how to fix this?

I've heard several times that Nexus mod manager doesn't work well with Dragon Age: Origins. Is that true? If so, what kind of problems does it have? And what's the best method to install mods in this game? Manual, another mod manager...?

Thank you for the background, @theskymoves. It doesn't look like this has happened with the mods I have installed, although I have to say that I couldn't really notice any improvement in the graphics after installing JB3 textures, so maybe that one didn't install properly. Do you have any suggestion of how I should proceed in my case? Should I ditch Vortex altogether? And if so, what would be the recommended install method for Dragon Age mods?

OK, this is new for me. I have used Vortex for all my mods except one or two that were not very Vortex friendly. Coming from Baldur's Gate and its crazy complicated modding scene, I just thought that Vortex was a godsend. So what is wrong with Vortex? And, since there is something wrong with it, should I uninstall everything and reinstall without Vortex before proceeding with anything else?

I have tried to follow the special instructions for CNTS, but it says that you have to install it with DAO mod manager. I have downloaded DAO mod manager and I can't figure out how to use it. The page of DAO mod manager has a link to instructions, but the link is dead. Do you know how to do this?

That might have something to do with it. First I bought the standard edition, then I installed a few mods and then I bought the ultimate edition. I thought I would have to uninstall and reinstall everything, but when I launched the ultimate edition it worked with the mods straight away, so I assumed I didn't have to do anything else. So yeah, I'll check the special instructions for CNTS and tell you what happens.

That page could use some proofreading, I couldn't manage to understand much of what it says. I've done some proofreading myself of the parts I do understand. Still, it doesn't look like anything in that page explains the problems I described. Again, it doesn't look like this explains any of the problems I described. For the record, in all of the cases I described the condition was met and the programmed action was available (not on cooldown). What you've typed here is a condition, but does not include the action to take. It's not a condition, it's a behaviour. According to the description a character with aggressive behaviour automatically attacks visible enemies (if no tactic applies, I guess), which means he should never stay there doing nothing in the middle of combat. I use the aggressive behaviour for all of my characters because otherwise very often they just stay there in the middle of combat doing nothing, which means I have to do a lot of tedious micro management. It's true that the behaviours you suggested save some micro when there is hostile AoE, but I'd say that on average they save much less micro than the aggressive behaviour (when it works, at least). The tactics I use for lowest health always go after another tactic with the same action but with the condition "enemy rank: elite or higher". For example, the tactic "Shield bash on enemy with lowest health" goes after the tactic "Shield bash on enemy with rank elite or higher". This means that the lowest health tactic only triggers when all the enemies are low level. In that scenario it's best to finish off first those that are already almost dead.

I'm experiencing a lot of problems with tactics. Very often my characters just ignore the tactics I have defined for them. I'd say this happens about 20-30% of the time. Here's an example of tactics ignored in a relatively straightforward fight with four skeletons in the Brecilian forest ruins: Character: Alistair - Tactic: Shield bash on enemy with lowest health - Actual behaviour: Uses normal attacks Character: Morrigan - Tactic: Horror on enemy with highest health - Actual behaviour: Uses normal attacks Character: Protagonist - Tactic: Aggressive behaviour, enemy in range - Actual behaviour: Does nothing Character: Alistair - Tactic: Shield pummel on enemy with lowest health - Actual behaviour: Uses normal attacks Character: Morrigan - Tactic: Lightning on enemy affected by vulnerability hex, enemy affected by vulnerability hex - Actual behaviour: Uses normal attacks Character: Leliana - Tactic: Aggressive behaviour, enemy in range - Actual behaviour: Does nothingThis makes combat quite frustrating because it requires me to look all the time at the action indicators to check whether everyone is doing what they are supposed to do. I'm using several mods: JB3 textures, Advanced Tactics, More hairstyles, Bidelle's cosmetics, Custom number of tactics slots, QUDAO Fixpack, Dain's fixes and FTG UI mod. I have tried disabling my mods to check if one of them is causing the problem, but when I do it and try to load a saved game, the game complains that the mods are missing. It does give me the option to force the load of the saved game, but I don't think doing so would be wise, forcing the load would probably cause more problems than it solves. So, any idea of what might be causing the problem and how to fix it?

@balmz: Thank you for the suggestions: I'll install Dain's fixes straight away. Bug fixes are always good. Advanced quickbar sounds interesting, but I don't think I need it yet. I'll have a look again once I've progressed a bit more in the game. The other two seem to change significantly the original game contents, so I think I'll save them for a second playthrough. @theskymoves: Thank you, that sounds sensible. Regarding the minimal texture replacers, what would you recommend?

Hi, I just started the game a few days ago and I'm wondering what mods you would recommend for a first playthrough. I know it is often recommended to do your first playthroughs without mods, but my experience with other games (like Baldur's Gate) tells me that some mods can significantly improve the gaming experience even in a first playthrough. I have already installed Qwinn's Fixpack. According to the description it simply fixes bugs, so it looks like this is a must for everybody.I want my character to look more or less like myself, and the character generator in vanilla doesn't have enough options for that, so I have already installed More hairstyles and I could also use other mods that help with things like my beard.Improved atmosphere looks interesting. I like the parts that improve the behaviour of NPCs and the conversations, for example. But for my first playthrough I don't want things like more items and equipment, I'm already overwhelmed with what vanilla has. Also, it fixes some bugs, but I don't know if those bugs are already fixed in Qwinn's Fixpack. It looks like it's a very big mod with a complicated installation, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to try it for my first playthrough.In general, I'm interested in any mod that makes clear improvements to the game, but not in mods that change the content, I think it's best to save those for my second playthrough.So what do you recommend?